Question - using Brett to finish a beer

I brewed a big brown ale about a month ago - essentially the "Janet's Brown Ale" recipe from Jamil's book, but tweaked a bit with some brown sugar to bump it up a bit to 1.078 OG. I used Wyeast 1450 (1L starter) and kept it in the mid-upper 60's. It fermented well down to about 1.024, then stopped after about 2 weeks. That's a fair bit higher than my goal, which was 1.018 (using Hopville software), and the samples tasted very sweet, cloying. I added some yeast energizer and a bit more sugar a week ago and it dropped to about 1.021. I will probably bottle it as is, and I think it will be a good beer, but during the course of the past couple weeks I had a thought that I would like some input on.

If the beer had stopped completely at 1.024 and I felt that was just too sweet for what I wanted, would it be a viable strategy to rack to secondary, add a Wyeast Brett strain (5112 or 5526) and put it away for a year? I would then be going for a sour/brett type brown ale. Wyeast states that the attenuation for its Brett strains is "very high", so I wonder if that yeast would be able to do something with the remaining fermentables after the 1450 had petered out in the mid 20's. I doubt I'll try this for this batch, but am really curious if this is a reasonable approach to rescue a beer that, for whatever reason, has not fully attenuated.

thanks

 

6 points isn't all that much off your intended FG. Did you mash any higher than intended? Even a single degree?

 

i think that for the average homebrewer it's more of a gamble than a rescue when it comes to tinkering with a batch that has gone off in some way. not to say that it won't work but there is no way of knowing if it will or won't. anybody here could give you all manner of suggestions but they will be no better or worse than your own. try it and YOU let US know what happens.

 

It would work fine. Providing the beer doesn't have any obvious faults (apart from being sweet), you can add Brett.

Brett will not make it sour (it's debatable, but it would not be much), but will give it some earthy flavors.

Just don't use Brett to try and fix a bad beer (such as one with a vinegar taste).

 

I get that this is all hypothetical but did you try just moving the fermenter to a warmer area? You added sugar and yeast nutrients but before I threw Brett into something just so I could wait a year before knowing if it is messed up I would try to rouse the yeast a little more.

 

if by rescue, you mean entirely alter the beer into something else, but thats still good, then yes. if its too cloyingly sweet, but you still want a 'normal' brown ale and the normal tactics (warm, rouse, etc) don't work, you could add some amylase first. as long as the yeast didnt die off, the amylase will knock it down a few more points within a week or so and won't alter the flavor much (maybe a lil less body depending how far it takes it).