Gruit Stout with Brettanomyces

[brwagur]

Based on the grain bill and added spices, does anyone see any issue fermenting the Mugwort Anti Imperial Stout (from http://www.gruitale.com/rec_mugwort_stout.htm ) using a yeast blend containing Brett? The bill is:

8 1/2 lbs pale 2-row malt
3/4 lb caramel 120 L malt
1/2 lb chocolate malt
3/4 lb Weyermann Carafa II malt
1/2 lb roasted barley
1/2 lb Weyermann pale wheat malt
1 lb oat flakes

I'm currently fermenting my first funky beer, a pretty simple saison, with a mixture of Wyeast 3724, Wyeast Brett lambicus, Orval dregs, Goose Island Sofie dregs, and a tiny amount of Cuvee Rene dregs; assuming this beer turns out halfway decent, I'd like to use the slurry to ferment something more interesting.

Does anybody foresee any issue considering the high gravity of the wort or with a dark beer drying out as much as Brett is want to do?

I'm currently reading Oldsock's book but I thought I'd like to pick the community's brain a little. Any other suggestions would be welcome as well

 

[smokinghole]

The saison you have fermenting has full on lambic yeast in there. You're likely to end up with some acidity from the pedio that likely survived in Cuvee Rene. That's essentially how I got my souring culture. I saved up lambic bottle yeasts and bacteria and did a straight pitch of that into a saison wort.

Anyhow as for a high gravity wort and being a dark beer with roasted grains. You need to brew it to have low fermentability. I have a 1.092 "stout" with my souring culture in there currently sitting at 1.025 after a year of fermentation. I mashed at 158F and boiled for 4 hours as well as used a high % of caraaroma from weyermann. So between the carbonized sugars, caramelized sugars, high mash temp, and long boil I made a fairly unfermentable wort. Next time I do something like this I will ferment a portion on the side with out a brett/bacteria blend and see where it goes as a forced ferment to see how far it can attenuate with something like WLP001/US05/ ale yeast.

 

[brwagur]

Thanks for the tips! When using a saison yeast in a mixed culture with brett and pedio, by the time it reaches a stable gravity is there any of the saison character left? I mean, I guess I won't really know what this blend is doing until I taste the beer/ take a gravity sample and it's only been in the carboy since the 1st.

What that means is that it will be quite a while until I can get around to brewing the beer that I posted about, at least if I want to use this yeast. By that time I'll probably know a lot more than I do now (I've only been brewing for a few months as is)

Does anybody have experience with gruits in general? A lot of the information I find when researching them is steeped in foofy, new-agey, herbalist stuff.

 

[smokinghole]

You will not have what is defined as a saison by today's definition. I wholly believe that saison was funky and sour and almost gueuze-like except they didn't do turgid mashes and probably didn't use spontaneous fermentation. I bet they had hop tolerant bacteria that soured mixed with funk from Brett.

As for gruit, no clue.

 

[sweetcell]

Based on the grain bill and added spices, does anyone see any issue fermenting the Mugwort Anti Imperial Stout (from http://www.gruitale.com/rec_mugwort_stout.htm ) using a yeast blend containing Brett?

as i wrote here, my personal experience is that brett + dark malts can be harsh and needs time to age. after the brett (and bugs) chew through the residual sugars, there is little left to counter the impact of the astringent roast malts. solution: use less roast. i would go with something like:

1/4 lb chocolate malt
1 lb Weyermann Carafa II malt
1/4 lb roasted barley

 

[brwagur]

Thanks for the tips guys. I think my brewing buddy and I are going to work our way through Brewing Classic Styles for a little bit before taking on something this complicated. Hopefully you'll see me posting about it a few months from now!