grain bill advice for wine yeast + brett experiment beer

[SanPancho]

so trying to use some wine yeast and brett for little experiment. got that all sorted and figured out, but realized i am a bit of a blank when it comes to grain bill.

i'm thinking that something pretty plain and neutral would be good to really let the yeast ester character stand out so i can get familiar with it. but i'm also of the thought that a bit of dextrins could be good as well, either from mash or from using some crystals in the sub-30 lovibond range.

anybody have some experience here?

 

[cactusgarrett]

Without ANY knowledge of what you're trying to do...

Aside from mashing high, you could also use some malto-dextrin for the brett to feed on after primary fermentation. That could isolate the brett progress from the wine yeast ferment.

 

[SanPancho]

long story short (forgive me if you know this) - the wine doesnt eat maltotriose, so you need a "beer" yeast to eat those. but wine yeasts produce toxins that sach yeasts cant handle. so you gotta use brett instead. not really wanting a brett character, but the only other option is to use enzyme to break down maltrotriose like they do in light beer. not sure i wanna go that route.

so im not really interested in adding body or anything like that. or at least, i dont see that as a big problem. it may turn out that way. but for now i dont plan on aging these guys at all for extended lengths when brett would eat everything down to 00.

i kind of had this idea in my head that a golden ale /golden sour type wort would be good, with a bit of sweetness but not necessarily heavy. i want to really get an impression of the yeast character this time, and then can start tweaking it the grains and mash as appropriate. but a super light pils/two row may be a bit too light? does that make sense?

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'd love to help but I don't quite understand what you're trying to do. Why not just use a beer yeast to make beer?

wine doesnt eat maltotriose, so you need a "beer" yeast to eat those

Not true. I can find many reports of wine yeast fermenting beer. I'm guessing it varies by strain.

wine yeasts produce toxins that sach yeasts cant handle

This varies by strain. Not all yeasts product competitive ("killer") factor.

gotta use brett instead. not really wanting a brett character,

What? Don't use Brett if you don't want Brett.

use enzyme to break down maltrotriose

I've heard nothing but bad things about Beano in beer, but it's not something I've researched.

i dont plan on aging these guys at all for extended lengths when brett would eat everything down to 00.

If you're planning to bottle a beer that's not done fermenting you might run into some issues.

My advice:
If you want to use a wine yeast for giggles, just go for it and see what kind of attenuation and flavor profile you get ...before trying to complicate matters.
Hope this helps.

 

[SanPancho]

um, ok.
if you've "found many reports of wine yeast fermenting" MALTOTRIOSE, please show your work. its the opposite of the information i got directly from lalvin/lallemond, white labs, wyeast, and others. they all said wine yeasts dont consume maltrotriose- which is the reason im doing a mixed pitch-- the need for secondary yeast to eat maltotriose. currently ive been able to find one wine yeast that is "thought" to be able to consume maltotriose. out of like a hundred commercial strains of wine yeast. and thats rumor, not necessarily fact. if you have an undiscovered wine yeast that eats maltotriose please share.

yes, some wine yeasts are susceptible or neutral as opposed to killer. im using killer.

if you have a better idea of a yeast that eats maltotriose and can handle the killer factor, again, please show your work.

the enzyme in question is AG300. its used in making light beer. nothing to do with beano.

and nobody said anything about bottling.


very helpful. thanks

 

[couchsending]

If you don’t want Brett character use the enzymes, AG300 works like a champ every time. 1ml in 5 gallons will give you something with very little residual sugar.

 

[bucketnative]

https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/07/red-wine-yeast-flemish-ale.html

https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/07/red-wine-yeast-sour-beer-tasting.html

https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2017/12/cherry-wine-flanders-red-recipe.html

 

[SanPancho]

i feel like i have a plan to deal with the brett. i only need it to clean up the maltotriose and get to a reasonable FG. i figure(hope) that if i use C and grow a decent size culture, i can co-pitch the two and the wine yeast will take off and consume most of the simple sugars quickly while the brett is still getting going. (it always moves slow in my experience) that way it gets some simple sugars and the maltotriose to chew on and then it flocs. hopefully, it shouldnt put out too much in the way of funk.

thats the plan for the white wine yeast. for the red yeast i still need to work on the plan somewhat, but probably similar. maybe brett b though.

im not sure why, but i just dont want to really use the enzyme. i think there's very likely something to be said for the complexity of the co-pitch vs wine alone. i think it'll be good, its just that i want the brett to play nicely in the background. if it doesnt work out that way then ii'll go ahead and use enzyme. im not opposed to it in any way, just feel like getting the wine and the brett to do what i want would be a superior result.

so back to my original question- grain bill. some light crystals? a vienna/munich blend?

 

[505-Brewer]

I'd love to help but I don't quite understand what you're trying to do. Why not just use a beer yeast to make beer?

Cuz that what he uses to make wine? [emoji12][emoji16]

 

[505-Brewer]

Maybe describe the “beer” your trying to make. Chardonnay like? Pinot? I think wine yeast and brett will end up dry. Just need to figure out how much brett character and what type and how much body/sweetness you want. Lots of options. Add oak. Etc. i like the idea to use C. I assume thats brett clausseni. Good in a lighter grain bill. Think saison like. How would you build in the character youd want in a saison? Dont wine yeast produce glycerol for texture body with low gravity?

 

[SanPancho]

its based off my son's birthday beer, and something we'll be serving alot of i think. the problem is he was born at like 3 am, and i went home and slept for a few, brewed up a beer, then went back to the hospital. didnt take notes. or if i did, cant find them.

so ive been chasing iterations of this recipe for a while. ive mostly got it, its a brett c beer with some winey/grapey/fruity hops. very dry and crisp. but brett can be a bit hard to "control" so at times i get more funk than id like.

this is a variation i have thought out, and if its promising, we'll advance to barrel aging in some neutral white wine barrels and see what that does to it. but the idea being a dry crisp beer. apparently some foolio out here in the bay area has a similar-ish beer (very dry, light colored, fruity hops) and decided to call it "brut ipa" and they're trying to make it a thing. they use enzyme to get it super dry, my recipe is just brett for the extra dry finish. that make me old school brut i guess?

if i had to guess id say more pinot gris, albarino, vino verdhe, reisling, etc. not so much chard, not rich, buttery, or sweet.

 

[505-Brewer]

Pitch brett early and possibly before wine yeast to lessen the funk. Sounds delish. Look for hop descriptors that are wine like. N Sauvin can be good but often its heavy on the GNO/petroleum.

 

[oli-aus]

I actually brewed a beer with wine yeast a couple of days a go, It's my first experience with it too.
My hope was for white wine like flavours and increased mouthfeel saison/wild ale. (maybe it will be really fruity and full like a new-world Viognier or it could end up being quite lemony and lean like a chablis)

I think your plan sounds like a good one. I might have missed something in the thread, but wouldn't co-pitching brett result in the wine yeast killing the brett?
I read, unless other yeasts out number the wine yeast 90:10 then it will most likely kill them, brett included.

My plan was initial fermentation with wine yeast, then cold crash and rack onto a mixed culture.

Very keen to hear your results as an added data point to my experiment.


I've attached my brewing notes below:

Wine yeast saison w/ green peppercorns, lemon and mozaic

Brew date: 7.5.18

Batch sizeL: 17L ish

3kg pilsner
900g oats
300g white sugar (added at start of boil)

mash at 65c and under

10mins - 40g Mozaic
0 mins - 40g Mozaic (Chill to 80c then 10min hop stand)
0 mins - 28g drained green un-dried peppercorns (French, out of tiny tin)(half of peppercorns fell out after flame out at start of chilling)
0 mins - 2 lemons worth of zest

O.G: 1.041

primary ferment: Pitch wine yeast BV7

After primary fermentation, cold crash and rack beer onto Meerts culture (v. lemony).
(maybe rack beer to buckets, clean wine yeast then rack beer back into big vessel again w/ the new culture)

After 2 months taste and hopefully bottle

 

[SanPancho]

Pitch brett early and possibly before wine yeast to lessen the funk. Sounds delish. Look for hop descriptors that are wine like. N Sauvin can be good but often its heavy on the GNO/petroleum.

The brett starter took off within 8 hours, which i think is fast for brett. So based on that i want to see the wine at krauzen at least before i ptich brett since id like wine to dominate this time around. That make sense?

What do you mean by GNO?

 

[SanPancho]

All info ive found says killer factor only applies to same species. So sach vs brett is not a problem. In any case, found a white that isnt killer so no problem there anyways.

 

[505-Brewer]

Garlic and onion

 

[z-bob]

I brewed a blonde ale a couple of months ago; just Belgian pilsner malt, Sterling hops (about 30 IBUs), and K1V-1116 wine yeast. It took a long time to finish, probably because it was in an unheated basement, but it may be my best beer ever. It did attenuate just fine. My hydrometer says it went to 1.000 but I don't believe that. (the hydrometer is about 40 years old and I seldom use it)

I think '1116 is a "killer" yeast, but it does consume maltotriose, and it's POF-. It's kind of an oddball.

 

[SanPancho]

Yeah, that’s the only one I was able to find that’s supposed to eat maltotriose. If you got to 000 then it must. I ended up using a different wine yeast, so will have to circle back to that one later. But it sounds promising.

 

[RPh_Guy]

if you have an undiscovered wine yeast that eats maltotriose please share.

It might behoove you to consider your tone when responding to someone trying to help you.
The world of microbiology is vast and largely unexplored. A simplistic generalization will frequently be incorrect without a caveat that it may vary by the individual strain.

 

[SanPancho]

Itd behoove you to actually read the original post and its question and before you just start typing random answers that are wrong or have nothing to do with the question at hand.

That tends to correlate positively with the Tone of the replies you will receive.

Help me help you.

 

[z-bob]

If you already know everything, why did you even post a question? Was it a test?

(can you deduce my tone from that?)

 

[SanPancho]

Why are you still posting?