First, the carnage:
This is a Belgian strong ale recipe I have brewed many times, that uses Wyeast 3737 (Trappist High Gravity). A year ago we split a batch and aged half on bourbon soaked oak cubes and the other half on wine soaked oak cubes. The Bourbon behaved as expected, but the wine tasted a bit wild after a few weeks. It became apparent after a while that there was a brett infection, and frankly the beer tasted delicious - kind of like Orval. A month or two ago we brewed the same split batch again, and celebrated with one of the wine beers that had aged a year. It was delicious.
I never really figured out where the brett came from. We have never brewed with it before, so the equipment was clean. I figured it was either in the wine, or in the cubes (and not sufficiently killed by the wine). But we liked the final product enough to try the same process again. This new batch fermented for two weeks, and then sat on the soaked oak cubes for another two weeks. I used the same small secondary Better Bottle for the wine half of the batch, after sanitizing it with StarSan. Both the bourbon batch and the wine batch were bottled on the same day. We used 22oz bombers and set them in the closet in cardboard boxes. We tasted each a few weeks later and all seemed OK, but the wine ones seemed over carbonated. This worried me a bit, but I figured we would be OK.
Well, we just got back from a week vacation, and found the above surprise in our closet. Half of the wine case exploded - and I mean REALLY exploded. Small shards of glass. Some powder. The large remaining bottoms had spider cracks all throughout. I immediately opened the one I had chilling in the fridge, and it gushed a bit. I have to say it tasted delicious, a bit wild - but no obvious brett flavor. I placed the other half case of bottles in a bucket filled with water, and covered it with a cookie sheet and a 12 pack of other beer as weight. This morning I discovered that another bottle had gone off in the bucket. I opened the remaining bottles, they all gushed like crazy. I let them settle and poured them into a growler that we will probably drink this weekend. I tried a bourbon bottle - no problems there.
EDIT: It was damn hot in Seattle while we were gone for vacation, and that may have affected things.
As a side note - I look pretty funny dressed in a raincoat, leather gloves and a paintball mask. #hurtlocker
I OBVIOUSLY had an infection in the wine batch, and it was more vigorous than in the first brew a year ago. Who knows if it is a fresh infection from the wine itself, or the cubes, or something lurking in that fermenter from the previous brew a year ago (we don't have much use for that small Better Bottle usually). Hell, maybe it was a totally different infection. I'm not sure I will ever know the answers to these questions.
But we really like the flavor of this beer aged on wine soaked oak cubes, and we want to keep brewing it. I guess my question is, how to I keep brewing it without killing myself?
I guess we could let the wine batches sit in secondary for a much longer time and let the bugs do their work, but that worries me for two reasons. First, that might give us too much oak flavor. Second, don't you run the risk that if it sits for too long that priming sugar won't produce any carbonation at all due to tired yeast? And if additional yeast is needed at bottling, isn't that ALSO a risk if not done correctly? We could also just start kegging, but we don't really have the space for that whole setup right now.
Do any of you have any suggestions or thoughts? Thanks in advance!
This is a Belgian strong ale recipe I have brewed many times, that uses Wyeast 3737 (Trappist High Gravity). A year ago we split a batch and aged half on bourbon soaked oak cubes and the other half on wine soaked oak cubes. The Bourbon behaved as expected, but the wine tasted a bit wild after a few weeks. It became apparent after a while that there was a brett infection, and frankly the beer tasted delicious - kind of like Orval. A month or two ago we brewed the same split batch again, and celebrated with one of the wine beers that had aged a year. It was delicious.
I never really figured out where the brett came from. We have never brewed with it before, so the equipment was clean. I figured it was either in the wine, or in the cubes (and not sufficiently killed by the wine). But we liked the final product enough to try the same process again. This new batch fermented for two weeks, and then sat on the soaked oak cubes for another two weeks. I used the same small secondary Better Bottle for the wine half of the batch, after sanitizing it with StarSan. Both the bourbon batch and the wine batch were bottled on the same day. We used 22oz bombers and set them in the closet in cardboard boxes. We tasted each a few weeks later and all seemed OK, but the wine ones seemed over carbonated. This worried me a bit, but I figured we would be OK.
Well, we just got back from a week vacation, and found the above surprise in our closet. Half of the wine case exploded - and I mean REALLY exploded. Small shards of glass. Some powder. The large remaining bottoms had spider cracks all throughout. I immediately opened the one I had chilling in the fridge, and it gushed a bit. I have to say it tasted delicious, a bit wild - but no obvious brett flavor. I placed the other half case of bottles in a bucket filled with water, and covered it with a cookie sheet and a 12 pack of other beer as weight. This morning I discovered that another bottle had gone off in the bucket. I opened the remaining bottles, they all gushed like crazy. I let them settle and poured them into a growler that we will probably drink this weekend. I tried a bourbon bottle - no problems there.
EDIT: It was damn hot in Seattle while we were gone for vacation, and that may have affected things.
As a side note - I look pretty funny dressed in a raincoat, leather gloves and a paintball mask. #hurtlocker
I OBVIOUSLY had an infection in the wine batch, and it was more vigorous than in the first brew a year ago. Who knows if it is a fresh infection from the wine itself, or the cubes, or something lurking in that fermenter from the previous brew a year ago (we don't have much use for that small Better Bottle usually). Hell, maybe it was a totally different infection. I'm not sure I will ever know the answers to these questions.
But we really like the flavor of this beer aged on wine soaked oak cubes, and we want to keep brewing it. I guess my question is, how to I keep brewing it without killing myself?
I guess we could let the wine batches sit in secondary for a much longer time and let the bugs do their work, but that worries me for two reasons. First, that might give us too much oak flavor. Second, don't you run the risk that if it sits for too long that priming sugar won't produce any carbonation at all due to tired yeast? And if additional yeast is needed at bottling, isn't that ALSO a risk if not done correctly? We could also just start kegging, but we don't really have the space for that whole setup right now.
Do any of you have any suggestions or thoughts? Thanks in advance!
