All-Brett beer; Leave on cake or rack?

[Calder]

I have 2 x 2.5 gallon batches with different Brett yeasts going. Been a week so far. The plan is to eventually use these cakes for larger beers (7 gallon).

But I have other beers ahead of them, and I will not be bottling for at least 12 weeks. Should I leave the beer on the cake for the whole time, or rack in a couple of weeks and store the cake in a quart mason jar in the fridge. I am not planning on making a starter for the next beer for each of these.

If this were sacc, I would rack after 2 to 3 weeks and store the yeast; the head pressure of the beer in the fermenter accelerates yeast deterioration, the fridge will preserve the yeast better, and removing it would eliminate potential for autolysis.

Not sure what is the best way to handle Brett.

 

[othellomcbane]

In this situation, the answer is pretty much "do whatever is most convenient for you."

Brett essentially cannibalizes dead yeast cells (Sacch or Brett), making autolysis basically a non-issue. Some styles of sour beer are intentionally left on the yeast cake to create more funk from Brett eating up those cells over time. On a shorter schedule, it likely won't make much difference either way. As long as the beer is able to hit terminal gravity, you can do what you need to with the yeast cake.

Also, I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but don't store Brett in the fridge; it very much prefers to be stored at room temp.

 

[berebrando]

Also, I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but don't store Brett in the fridge; it very much prefers to be stored at room temp.

This was my first thought. Absolutely. I've heard Mr Yakobson say that Brett is better off warmer for storage. I have had no issues following this protocol.

 

[BrasseurGeorges]

I agree with the two posts above, and will add a recommendation that you store under airlock, rather than in a mason jar, in case the brett keeps working.

 

[sweetcell]

what they said.

If this were sacc, I would rack after 2 to 3 weeks and store the yeast; the head pressure of the beer in the fermenter accelerates yeast deterioration,

i don't have any proof or references, but i'm pretty sure the pressure inside a homebrewer's carboy/bucket is pretty negligible. i doubt that it speeds yeast deterioration. commercial brewers have to worry about pressure inside their fermenters, because they are dealing with much larger quantities and much higher amounts of pressure against the yeast cake.

 

[Calder]

what they said.



i don't have any proof or references, but i'm pretty sure the pressure inside a homebrewer's carboy/bucket is pretty negligible. i doubt that it speeds yeast deterioration. commercial brewers have to worry about pressure inside their fermenters, because they are dealing with much larger quantities and much higher amounts of pressure against the yeast cake.

18 inches of liquid will get you about a quarter of a PSI. That is something like a 4 ozs weight on every square inch, or 32 lbs on a square foot.

This beer has been up to about 85 F twice, is currently at 75 after 10 days. I'll be taking it down to 70 over tomorrow and will keep it there for another 10 days. Higher temperatures accelerate yeast deterioration. I would not leave any beer on Sacc more than 3 weeks in these conditions. I just don't know what Brett does.

Thanks everyone for the input. I think the beer is going to be fine from everything I have read. I will be taking it off the yeast after 3 weeks, and storing the yeast in the fridge until I re-pitch.

 

[othellomcbane]

Thanks everyone for the input. I think the beer is going to be fine from everything I have read. I will be taking it off the yeast after 3 weeks, and storing the yeast in the fridge until I re-pitch.

Again, I would not store the Brett in the fridge. It will die off much faster. Store it at room temp.

 

[Calder]

Again, I would not store the Brett in the fridge. It will die off much faster. Store it at room temp.

It won't die off (well, some may, but the majority of it will be fine).

One of the two Bretts I'm using here was a really small sample that had been kept refridgerated for over 2 years. When I say small; it was in an 8 ozs mason jar, in distilled water, and it was a very thin layer of off-white yeast on the bottom of the jar. If you didn't know it was in here, you might have missed it.

The other was a more respectable amount of yeast (about he amount you would get in a WLP vial), and had been refridgerated for somewhere between 8 and 10 months I think.

Both yeasts were up and running withing 24 hours in a 1.020 starter wort.

 

[Calder]

Racked both beers at 4 weeks. Both were 1.015, slightly less than 75% attenuation.

The surprising thing I found was that neither seemed to have any flavor contribution from the Brett. One of them (WLP650 - Brett-B) I've used several times and gotten a lot of flavor fermenting around 70 F. At 82-84 F I'm getting nothing from the same yeast.

The other yeast is cultured from an old bottle of Ommegang Biere de Mars. It had tons of farmyard flavors in the starter, but there is nothing in the beer