Pasteurizing Sour Beer Before Mixing with Clean Beer?

[dr_bollinger]

I was planning on brewing a clean, 100% sacc saison tomorrow. I wasn't planning on adding brett or bacteria because my "funky" keg is currently occupied, while I have a "clean" keg that is almost available.

I just had an idea, though. I have 1 gallon of a 100% brett beer that has been aging for around 1 year. I opened it up last night and it's tasting great -- it was originally very fruity and relatively clean, but it has developed a nice brett funk with age.

I'm considering adding the full gallon of the brett beer into the brew kettle at the end of the boil to pasteurize it (i.e., into 4.5 gallons of boiling wort 10 minutes before the end of the boil). Then I would pitch the saison yeast like normal. This would sort of be like kettle souring, except with a shorter boil and using a beer that has been fermented with brett rather than inoculated with lacto bacteria. I wonder whether the final beer would retain much brett character?

Alternatively, I could pasteurize the brett beer by bringing it up to around 170 F for 10 minutes, and then pitch it into the saison when the saison is finished fermenting. That might be the better option to retain brett character.

The third option I can think of is to kill the brett with potassium metabisulphite before pitching it into the saison post-fermentation.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with any of these methods?

 

[divrack]

i wouldnt go adding dem chemicals to a nice decent beer now. pasteurising would probably work. not sure why youd want to re-ferment your nice tasty brett beer though. you'd lose alkyholl and aroma during ferment and it seems a crazy waste and risk when youve been letting the little guy come into his own for a year... that said by all means experiment, however most things arent a thing because they just arent good ideas.
Id say your best bet would just be to wait till the clean beer is done and try blending a small bit and if you like it just chuck it in and keep it cool while drinking it. unless you take a long time drinking

 

[505-Brewer]

Ferment your saison then add/blend your brett beer. Put it in whatever keg you have. Brett is easily killed w common sanitizers. Best bet take apart your keg and soak all parts in pbw then sanitize then reassemble. Non issue. Beer tubing can be sani’d or changed out easy enough. If you like the brett beer it will do wonders for your saison i bet.

Do not add brett beer to the kettle. It’ll just get oxidized. It is nothing like a kettle sour as lacto sours quickly and your brett took what - a year.

 

[dr_bollinger]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm leaning towards tossing 1 campden tablet into the brett beer 1 day before blending. That should significantly mitigate the chance of future infections while avoiding the risk of oxidization. Also, I don't see any downside to using campden.

 

[divrack]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm leaning towards tossing 1 campden tablet into the brett beer 1 day before blending. That should significantly mitigate the chance of future infections while avoiding the risk of oxidization. Also, I don't see any downside to using campden.

downside is bad taste
plus it wont kill all the brett.

dont do it mon..
if you must kill the brett which i wouldn't bother doing unless keeping the beer cool while youre drinking it/long time drinking, id go for gentle pasteurisation. a bunch of very decent Belgian brewers pasteurise their stuff before back sweetening i believe.

 

[LakesideBrewing]

I would bottle and drink the Brett beer, as you said it was tasting great. Alternatively, you could buy another keg and blend the two finished beers at a later time.

All the other stuff about chemicals, and boiling finished beer, I would never do. But, this hobby is all about experimenting, so if you decide to do that please report back.

 

[cactusgarrett]

Brett isn't like other 'bugs' as it's very similar to Sacc - with typical cleaning and sanitizing practices, you shouldn't have to worry about cross contamination or lingering effects. Go the route 505-brewer suggested - blend. I don't see an upside to killing off brett in this instance.

 

[chrilr]

Mad Fermentationist wrote about killing Brett in a beer with tablets. Pretty sure it was his courage ris recipe