EBY/BBA Brettanomyces Experiment

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Brewbien

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I was curious if anyone else is participating in the EBY/BBA. I am very excited for this and I thought this would be a good place to discuss our thoughts and finding as we go through the process. It looks like samples will be sent out in August. If you are participating please mention which strains you selected. Here are mine:

EBY001 B. girardin I
EBY002 B. dreifonteinii I
EBY007 B. italiana I
EBY014 B. lostfontain I
EBY015 B. lostfontain II
EBY016 B. lembeek I
EBY017 B. lembeek II
EBY019 B. cucurbita I
EBY020 B. jurassienne I
EBY035 B. cucurbita II
EBY038 B. cantillon VIII
EBY048 B. italiana II

I think I am going to get these Soda Preforms and Rack and store samples at room temp for later use after the experiment per Chad Yacobson's suggestion.

EDIT:

I wanted to post the recipe and experiment for consistency. Correct me if any of this is wrong Kerosin. I think it's important that there is some consistency to get accurate and consistent results.

STARTER:

20g DME in 200mL water per strain
Let brett go for three weeks unstirred
Pitch each strain into a half gallon of wort

RECIPE:

5 gallon Batch Size
60 min boil
1.050 OG
25 IBU

5.5lb Pilsner malt
1.0lb Munich malt
2.0lb Wheat malt
6.0oz Acid malt

1oz Styrian Goldings (60min)
1oz Saaz (10 min)

Mash: 10.4 L (2.75 gal), sparge: 19.8 L (5.2 gal) @78°C (172°F)
Rest: Mash in @67°C (152°F), 60min @67°C (152°F), sparge at 74°C (165.2°F)

Fermentation: Oxygenate your wort as normal

Primary 1-31 days at around 20°C (68°F) (Depending on strain performance)

Secondary 1-31 days (Depending on strain performance)

Maturation: Carbonation (CO2 vol) 2
 
Brewbien, thanks for posting our experiment.

Cheers, Sam (aka eurekabrewing)

No problem. I was kind of weary to do so at first because I didn't know if you guys would mind but I'm very excited about the experiment and I figured this would be a really good place to see notes of other people in the experiment as well as some real time results. Seems like we still know so little about Brett when compared to Sacc.

Cheers!
 
I grabbed 4 strains the other day, I'll update which ones particularly later on.

Good idea on the thread.
 
Would love to get involved. A engineering friend and I are working with a microbiologist on rapid differentiation/identification of yeast types, and would love to test out some new bugs.

Is it still possible to sign up?
 
Would love to get involved. A engineering friend and I are working with a microbiologist on rapid differentiation/identification of yeast types, and would love to test out some new bugs.

Is it still possible to sign up?

I believe so. Click the EBY link on my first post and follow the directions....

Cheers!
 
Is there a minimum number of strains you want participants to sign up for or would signing up for only one variety work?
 
This is interesting, I might jump in in the future when the new brewery is up and running...until then my garage is nothing but a mess of steel waiting to be welded.
 
Is there a minimum number of strains you want participants to sign up for or would signing up for only one variety work?

As long as you are willing to participate in the experiment, 1 is fine as far as I can tell.
 
Which ones did you get?

I went for EBY021 B. bruery I and EBY035 B. cucurbita II. I'm a fan of The Bruery and Jolly Pumpkin. I was hoping to snag the other Jolly Pumpkin strain (EBY019 B. cucurbita I), but they were all spoken for.
 
I went for EBY021 B. bruery I and EBY035 B. cucurbita II. I'm a fan of The Bruery and Jolly Pumpkin. I was hoping to snag the other Jolly Pumpkin strain (EBY019 B. cucurbita I), but they were all spoken for.
@lawbadger: May I ask you to send me an email to contacteurekabrewing(at)gmail.com with your shipping address as mentioned in the post to make your paticipation official?
Is there a minimum number of strains you want participants to sign up for or would signing up for only one variety work?
The minimum number of strains is one. And you can choose as many strains as you like. Please only choose strains you are going to test.

If someone would like to test all the twenty yeast strains for the experiment (maybe as a homebrew club?), contact me directly (contacteurekabrewing(at)gmail.com). I have set some samples aside for such cases.

Registration is open until the 11th of August 2013.

Cheers and thanks to all the numerous participants,
Samuel
 
I just signed up for this project. Selected 14 strains since have a few other members of my homebrew club helping with this. Gonna do a 10gal batch. I really cant wait to hear everyones reports on these yeasts. Such an awesome opportunity here.

Thanks Sam!
 
I went for EBY021 B. bruery I and EBY035 B. cucurbita II. I'm a fan of The Bruery and Jolly Pumpkin. I was hoping to snag the other Jolly Pumpkin strain (EBY019 B. cucurbita I), but they were all spoken for.

After having Sour In The Rye and Bois from The Bruery this weekend, both of which were phenomenal, I wish I would have picked the Bruery strain.
 
After having Sour In The Rye and Bois from The Bruery this weekend, both of which were phenomenal, I wish I would have picked the Bruery strain.
B. bruery I is isolated from Saison de Rue and hence more a Saison Brett I guess.

Unfortunately, I can't get my hands on any sours from The Bruery here. Actually no real US sour beers at all (with the exception of Jolly Pumpkins and Jester King). So no chance for me to get any bugs from such beers. :(

If anyone participating in the experiment willing to send me some bugs or dregs, gets the Brett strains for free (I will cover the shipping costs myself and even send you some tubes with the Brett strains for returning them to me).

Cheers, Sam
 
If anyone participating in the experiment willing to send me some bugs or dregs, gets the Brett strains for free (I will cover the shipping costs myself and even send you some tubes with the Brett strains for returning them to me).

Im brewing a sour now that was fermented with the dregs from Monks Cafe Flanders Red. I didnt save those dregs but I could get more. In my fridge I have the dregs from Goose Island Juliet and the brett from one of the Anchorage brett beers. I can also get my hands on more Saison de Rue.
 
Im brewing a sour now that was fermented with the dregs from Monks Cafe Flanders Red. I didnt save those dregs but I could get more. In my fridge I have the dregs from Goose Island Juliet and the brett from one of the Anchorage brett beers. I can also get my hands on more Saison de Rue.
Would you send me dregs of the Goose Island and the Anchorage one? Never tried any Goose Island nor Anchorage beers before. Don't worry about the Saison de Rue. I can get this one myself. And don't worry about the Monks Cafe Flanders Red either. I don't want to encourage you to drink amazing beer just because of me :)
 
Would you send me dregs of the Goose Island and the Anchorage one? Never tried any Goose Island nor Anchorage beers before. Don't worry about the Saison de Rue. I can get this one myself. And don't worry about the Monks Cafe Flanders Red either. I don't want to encourage you to drink amazing beer just because of me :)

Sure I could do that, I will need to step them up a little first. Also, I am going to be in Berlin from the 29th to the 5th. Not sure if that will help with the exchange at all.
 
Sure I could do that, I will need to step them up a little first. Also, I am going to be in Berlin from the 29th to the 5th. Not sure if that will help with the exchange at all.

The bugs in GI Juliet I believe are from East Coast Yeast, not sure what they use in their other beers. But I can get other GI samples if you want. As long as I am going to be sending you stuff let me know if there is anything else you want me to try and grab.
 
Just signed up for cant vi and lambeek II. Would love to try some of the others, but I was too late. Maybe I can convince some club members to join and we can get a 20 pack.
 
Just signed up for cant vi and lambeek II. Would love to try some of the others, but I was too late. Maybe I can convince some club members to join and we can get a 20 pack.

I'm hoping to get the ones I didn't choose by trading people in this thread.:mug:
 
B. bruery I is isolated from Saison de Rue and hence more a Saison Brett I guess.

Unfortunately, I can't get my hands on any sours from The Bruery here. Actually no real US sour beers at all (with the exception of Jolly Pumpkins and Jester King). So no chance for me to get any bugs from such beers. :(

If anyone participating in the experiment willing to send me some bugs or dregs, gets the Brett strains for free (I will cover the shipping costs myself and even send you some tubes with the Brett strains for returning them to me).

Cheers, Sam

I can send you some dregs from a bottle of Sahati from The Ale Apothecary. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a small brewery in Bend, OR that all the Portland beer nerds are going nuts for right now. Everything is open fermented in barrels with wild Brett and a house lacto strain. For Sahati they use a finnish kuurna for lautering, which is basically a hollowed log that they fill with spruce that works as a natural filter for the wort.
 
kerosin said:
B. bruery I is isolated from Saison de Rue and hence more a Saison Brett I guess.

Unfortunately, I can't get my hands on any sours from The Bruery here. Actually no real US sour beers at all (with the exception of Jolly Pumpkins and Jester King). So no chance for me to get any bugs from such beers. :(

If anyone participating in the experiment willing to send me some bugs or dregs, gets the Brett strains for free (I will cover the shipping costs myself and even send you some tubes with the Brett strains for returning them to me).

Cheers, Sam

Figures - I just drank two bruery bottles at a buddies house and didn't grab them.

The beer store where I'm working has a few of the Bruery beers as well as some Americanized sours and lambics. I'll see what they have a good stock of and take some pictures. After that, you let me know what you want I'll pick them up and send you the dregs.

For those of you in the Raleigh area, check out "tasty beverage." Good selection, and about 20% cheaper than the places I've been in Pitt and Ohio.
 
Just signed up: EBY08, EBY10, EBY11, EBY12, and EBY 13. As of a few minutes ago it appears that 8, 11, and 13 are the last available.

I'd be willing to trade with folks after the test batch is done.
 
I am up for a trade post experiment. I typically brew 10 gallon batches, so in am going to split my two into 2.5 gallon batches and pitch ecy1 bug farm in the other 5.
 
Hey guys,
first of all a big thank you to all the collaborators. I am just blown away. I initially planned to send out 180 samples and already expected to have a lot of leftovers. Now, seven days after initiating the experiment, my current send-out count is at 206 samples! :) Thank you to all of you.

I am most surprised about the following fact: 26 out of the current 27 collaborators are not from Europe. I see this as an indicator that using Bretts is not very common for European homebrewers. Am I living on the wrong continent?!? :)

The bugs in GI Juliet I believe are from East Coast Yeast, not sure what they use in their other beers. But I can get other GI samples if you want. As long as I am going to be sending you stuff let me know if there is anything else you want me to try and grab.
I read about Juliet, Sofie, Pepe Nero and for sure the Bourbon County Stout. Some bugs from Juliet are fine for a start.

Just signed up for cant vi and lambeek II. Would love to try some of the others, but I was too late. Maybe I can convince some club members to join and we can get a 20 pack.
If you want to go for the 20 pack, let me know.

I'm hoping to get the ones I didn't choose by trading people in this thread.:mug:
Please do so. I will give my best to release the strains as soon as some first results from the experiment are in.

I can send you some dregs from a bottle of Sahati from The Ale Apothecary. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a small brewery in Bend, OR that all the Portland beer nerds are going nuts for right now. Everything is open fermented in barrels with wild Brett and a house lacto strain. For Sahati they use a finnish kuurna for lautering, which is basically a hollowed log that they fill with spruce that works as a natural filter for the wort.
Please do so. The brewery has a really cool website and their technique is very interesting.
I could send the dregs from brux and a ecy 20 sour I made.
I already sent some tubes to friends to collect the dregs from Brux :) But I would gladly take some ECY20.

I'll see what they have a good stock of and take some pictures. After that, you let me know what you want I'll pick them up and send you the dregs.
What an offer. Thank you very much.

I really appreciate all your offers and I can't wait to try some of the strains myself.

Concerning the experiment, if you have any questions concerning the recipe or strains, please feel free to write me an email. For all you out there willing to try more strains, which are not available to select anymore, please let me know as well. I have some additional samples put aside.

Cheers, Sam (maybe one of the luckiest guys in Switzerland right now)
 
Hey guys, this is Jeff Crane from Bikes, Beers Adventures.

I have just posted some insight into the logistics of brewing with 20 strains of Brett at once. Let me know if you have some feedback.
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-great-brett-experiment-w-eureka.html

I also put together a Brettanomyces Evaluation Scoresheet that we can use to standardize our results.
Click to download the pdf

This is still a Rough Draft if you have any comments to help us improve. We will gather the results in order to get enough data to build a profile for each yeast.
 
Hey guys, this is Jeff Crane from Bikes, Beers Adventures.

I have just posted some insight into the logistics of brewing with 20 strains of Brett at once. Let me know if you have some feedback.
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-great-brett-experiment-w-eureka.html

I also put together a Brettanomyces Evaluation Scoresheet that we can use to standardize our results.
Click to download the pdf

This is still a Rough Draft if you have any comments to help us improve. We will gather the results in order to get enough data to build a profile for each yeast.

Excellent resource, thank you. It will be a challenge to do this correctly, best to be organized!
 
Hey guys, this is Jeff Crane from Bikes, Beers Adventures.

I have just posted some insight into the logistics of brewing with 20 strains of Brett at once. Let me know if you have some feedback.
http://jeffreycrane.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-great-brett-experiment-w-eureka.html

I also put together a Brettanomyces Evaluation Scoresheet that we can use to standardize our results.
Click to download the pdf

This is still a Rough Draft if you have any comments to help us improve. We will gather the results in order to get enough data to build a profile for each yeast.

I do have some comments/thoughts on this project and others can chime in here too. As we all know brett fermented beer, like with any yeast, will taste different depending on lots of factors like ferm temp, aging time, aging vessel (pressurized or not), etc. If everyone follows the exact same procedure then it will take years to explore the whole space of variables. Keeping the same base recipe, I would rather see people try different temps, different aging times etc. I am pretty good with stats and data analysis so if we can tweak the scoring sheets to be completely objective with numerical output I can compile everyones results and do some stats and multivariate analysis on them. This will work even better if each brewer shares the samples with multiple people. A 1/2 gallon batch is enough to give +30 people samples. We should definitely try and maximize the number of people evaluating these sample batches.
 
Really looking forward this. I'm one of the people that will be fermenting all 20 strains. I have 20 one gallon glass jugs ready for the job (found them in bulk at $3 a piece). I have a deep basement, and it stays around 66-68 degrees most of the year.

As far as building up the strains to a pitchable level, that's the only tricky part. I may have to do so in a few different groups. I was thinking Ball jars, and my pressure cooker may be good tools for the job.

I'd love to step up the starters to enough for almost full gallon batches. Would make for more samples, and I could do a tasting panel with my homebrew club.

-Greg
 
I'll be fermenting 20 strains as well. I'm picking up a pressure canner for the experiment (wanted one for a while) and will do the starters in sterilized pint canning jars - 2 dozen shipped from amazon is < price of 6 500ml Erlenmeyer flasks.

How are folks planning on racking and bottling the samples? i could see some potential issues with cross contamination using plastic tubing,
 
I do have some comments/thoughts on this project and others can chime in here too. As we all know brett fermented beer, like with any yeast, will taste different depending on lots of factors like ferm temp, aging time, aging vessel (pressurized or not), etc. If everyone follows the exact same procedure then it will take years to explore the whole space of variables. Keeping the same base recipe, I would rather see people try different temps, different aging times etc. I am pretty good with stats and data analysis so if we can tweak the scoring sheets to be completely objective with numerical output I can compile everyones results and do some stats and multivariate analysis on them. This will work even better if each brewer shares the samples with multiple people. A 1/2 gallon batch is enough to give +30 people samples. We should definitely try and maximize the number of people evaluating these sample batches.

All valid points you make here and thanks for pointing out some really good points. I do expect a lot of variability in the results. Simply because it is close to impossible to make the beers exactly the same way. By pre-defining a recipe, some of the factors are, at least in theory, constant (gravity, sugar composition, IBU). Further factors with impact on the outcome could be water profiles, efficiencies of the mash, material of fermenters, storage temperatures of beers after bottling, maybe even the bottle size matters, if starters ar stirred (acetic acid production) or not (less acetic acid production)...

What I would like to take home from this experiment is to get a rough idea how the individual strains perform simply because most of them are not tested yet. So don't be surprised if there are some really bad strains. My first approach was to send out 8 samples of each strain to get as many replicates as possible. So far, each strain will be tested at least 14 times. And six collaborators will test the entire set of 20 strains.

We left the fermentation times, temperatures as well as the split sizes open. So people can pick whatever they like or feel comfortable with. And I have absolutely nothing against playing around with fermentation temperatures nor aging times. But I agree that we should add those variables into the results as well.

Ryan, may I ask you to get yourself into the discussion on Jeffs blog because Jeff is in charge of the evalution sheet. Luke even made a more comfortable Google Form in the meantime to input the data.

And I support the idea to share the beers with many people as possible. Not only evaluate different people the beers in different ways but have different thresholds for certain compounds. Plus it is more fun to sample with others. I will try to sample the beers together with professional beer tasters and some homebrewers.

I recently encountered another problem: I don't have enough small bottles for the experiment (yet). I am working on that :mug:

Cheers from Switzerland,
Sam
 
I recently encountered another problem: I don't have enough small bottles for the experiment (yet). I am working on that :mug:

I was going to ferment in 1/2 gallon growlers but now I am thinking of using 2L soda bottles. Those are basically free, and twenty #2 drilled stoppers plus econo air lock will only cost ~$30.
 
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