First Brett Beer - Orval Dregs

[armstrong091]

Hello HBT. I've been benefiting from the wealth of knowledge that can be found on this forum for quite some time now and I have finally decided to join the fun. Any way, down to business;

I have a starter of cultured Orval dregs sitting on my counter and I just cannot wait to use it. Note that I have no experience with brett at all (other than enjoying the occasional sour beer and of course the brett bottle conditioned Orval).

While there is a significant amount of knowledge available for 100% brett fermented beers as well as secondary fermentation with brett, I haven't been able to find much on primary fermentation from the mix of saccharomyces and brettanomyces.

Essentially my question boils down to this:
Has anyone pitched a sacch/brett mix into the primary (Orval dregs or other) with good results? If so, what are your thoughts on my sort-of planned recipe below?

So the recipe I have in mind is as follows (for a 3 gallon batch):

2 kg (~4lbs) of pilsner malt
1 kg (~2lbs) of wheat malt
200g (~7 oz) of cyrstal malt

I'm thinking of staying on the hoppy side so their flavors will stand up to lengthy bottle conditioning. Probably a mix of Tettnanger and Saaz.

ferment at ??, maybe 18 C (64 f) ambient.
-----

So that's it.

Any and all input is welcome. Let me know if you think something should be changed or added/removed.

Also, any experience with the sacch/brett mix in primary is very appreciated.


Jon

 

[Polboy]

I did exacly what u planing to do but made 10gal and fermented 5with orval and the other half with 3711(it was saison grain bill), fermentation was very similar, fg was 10points lower with 3711 and 3711 beer was much better, i dont think i will do primary ferm with orval again but i add some to 2ndary with ris, didnt see any signs of activity but i will be botteling it soon so will have more info

 

[armstrong091]

Very cool. Thanks for the info. Let me know how the ris turns out. I think I might try this any way just for the experiment. I'll try and post results.

 

[Calder]

Orval has both sacc and brett. The starter will probably be growing the Sacc, not the brett. Sacc works faster than brett. Just assume you are making a beer with brett as a secondary yeast.

 

[armstrong091]

Yeah. I read in Brew like a monk that they used both the primary strain and "local yeast" which includes brett.
In the starter the fermentation very much looked like sacch fermentation. But there is definitely the brett funk present.

 

[armstrong091]

Just thought I would post an update for any future google searches that stumble across this thread...

Just racked the beer to secondary today after a week in primary. The fermentation was insane! I only had a 3 gallon batch in a 5 gallon carboy and the foam still overflowed.

The Gravity came down from 1.050 to 1.008.

The hydrometer sample tasted really good. Significant spicy phenols with a fruity, almost citrusy character. Diacetyl was noticeable but hopefully that will clear up in secondary. Also I hope the secondary fermentation will let the Brett do its thing and add some funk to the mix. Some very very mild funk could be detected in the sample as of yet, almost a shadow of funk (that's a good band name).

So that's it. Hope this is of use/interest.

Ciao

 

[Calder]

Report back in 6 months.

 

[Polboy]

Ok i open one bottle tonight and checked my notes, OG was 1.058 and took 6 weeks for orval culture to take it down to 1.007 (3711 finished the same beer in half of the time and got it down to 1.001), i bottled it on 07.01.12 so its 5 and a half months in the bottle. This beer is surprisingly clear (yeast wouldn't drop for a very long time but now looks beautiful), aroma is nice and has strong brett and floral character, i was going for 2.4 vol of co2 with priming sugar (was counting on brett to add more during long conditioning) but for whatever reason this beer is undercarb, small head disappeared in minutes and there is no bubbles coming out of solution, taste and mouthfeel is a disappointment, i can only taste tart and bitter flavors and it feels thin (from what i remember same wort fermented with 3711 had much nicer mouthfeel despite lower fg), i think this could be OK for hot summer day so i guess i will keep remaining bottles for several more months.