Last Minute Brett IPA. Can it be done?

[deputyandy]

So SWMBO is going away tomorrow and i have a chance to brew. I've been eyeing up a 100% brett IPA with a cool hop bill using WLP 644. Anyway, the issue i'm coming up against is I could brew either Saturday afternoon in to the evening or Sunday morning and i'm not sure my 644 starter will be built up for a solo pitch without stressing it out. FWIW the starter was initiated around 6 pm EST today.

My options are postpone the brew to build up the starter to make myself feel comfortable.

or throw caution to the wind and throw the starter in Saturday night or Sunday morning

or throw some US-05 in with the starter and see what i get.

OG is going to be around 1.065. possible as high as 1.070. the people at the brewshop gave me a lot of grain crush for what i asked so it's more of a crap shoot then i'd like.

Cheers

 

[WoodlandBrew]

There are a couple of ways around this that I use:
1) scale back the wort volume to something the yeast can handle. (keep the rest of the wort sealed up and steril as you would with the no-chill method). After fermentation is moving along add the rest of the wort.

2) scale back the all grain portion of the beer to something the yeast can handle, but keep the volume the same. Once the yeast is fermenting away nicely add malt extract to make up the OG.

These are detailed better in my book which will be published next month.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

... One more bit. You may know, but under pitching Brett tends to enhance the "barn yard" characteristics that Brett is known for. So maybe you want to intentionally under pitch.

 

[deputyandy]

The starter took off better than i was expecting. That said, i'd probably still be underpitching if I made the whole thing today.

I may cut back on the fermentables like you suggested to make it more doable.

I may step up the starter one last time and pitch it. See if it takes off and if it doesn't pitch some US-05 in there to get a blended result.