Saison bottle condition with Brett?

[TrickyDick]

Hi,

brewed a Prairie inspired Saison with Nelson Sauvin Hops. Need some help on how to finish it up.

Just finished primary fermentation (used gigayeast saison blend) for 1 week at 73-85º F on my summer kitchen porch (no direct sunlight). Airlock has stopped, and I'll measure gravity soon. Going to move to an A/C room at 72º for 2 weeks and going to add dry hops (also Nelson) for the last 5 days straight into the primary.

After that, the plan is to rack into bottling bucket add a vial of Brett B & Brett C and a partial packet of Red Wine yeast. I read this is how Prairie does it. I'm concerned about bottle bombs (maybe that's why they call it prairie bomb). I was wondering if I would achieve a similar result by adding the Brett now and giving it two weeks to do its thing, competing with the Saison yeast (and BADLY outnumbered) during secondary? I would reserve the wine yeast for the bottling bucket.

Also sort of curious about the proper priming sugar dose. Probably not much CO2 in the primary now sitting out there at 81º right now. I think it saw up to 85, maybe as high as 90º. Don't want bottle bombs either.

I brewed up 10 gallons, so I may only bottle half, and keg the other half. If I keg the other half, I'd probably attach a spunding valve and let it naturally carbonate rather than force carbonate.

Anybody have experience in bottle conditioning with mixed yeasts like this?
I'm probably overthinking things as per usual.

Thanks

TD

 

[mbbransc]

What did you end up doing? I'm brewing a saison this weekend and brett'g half of it. My plan it to pitch 3711 first and secondary with brett. I think I'll leave it there until consistent gravity checks and then dose with table sugar and bottle (not sure on re-yeasting).

 

[TrickyDick]

Basically I did what I said I was going to do. Only thing I didn't do was to bottle it. I kegged using Brett B & C strains into both kegs. I attached a spunding valve. I don't recall if I added priming sugar, but it think not. After 3-4 weeks there is little no no Brett character. I am giving it another week and then I'll add some priming sugar. Mine overshot the OG and from memory was 1.062, primary fermentation took it pretty low, down to 1.005-1.006 from memory. This is much more than I had planned as far as ABV. I suspect that I am going to need to add priming sugar.

I have another beer, a triple that hit about 9.1% from memory, but was homebrewish in flavor and clarity because I left it on the yeast cake for too long out of laziness. I pitched some Brett to attempt to clean it up along with oak spirals soaked in bourbon. It's got some nice Brett character after about a month or so, and the off flavors from the autolyzed yeast have faded or covered by the mild Brett character which plays very well with the mild oak and bourbon flavors. These kegs are also sitting at room temp with the saison, and have spunding valves. The oak was in for approx 10-14 days. I often don't keep good notes after primary fermentation.

TD


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[TrickyDick]

Just thought about this, and wanted to post about spunding valves. If you rapidly depressurize a carbonated beer in a full keg, you can get some gushing. Depending on the psi differential, you can get some beer that is expelled with some force through the spunding valve. I blasted Brett beer all over my drywall in the basement right next to where my fermentation is going to be taking place... DOH!!!

Hope I don't have to start brewing only Brett beers...

TD


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[TrickyDick]

Update.

I ended up adding some crooked stave dregs as I had been unhappy with how long it was taking to develop the funk I was after. Tapped the first keg yesterday.

Bingo! Taste is exactly what I was shooting for. Very happy with how it turned out. Dangerously easy to drink though, and at a 7.6% ABV, quite a bit more potent than I had planned. It was a rough Monday morning. I am planning to bottle the second keg. Good stuff.

TD

 

[mbbransc]

Did you use dregs from just one bottle? Did you step them up at all or just pitch them in?

 

[TrickyDick]

It was a few months in the kegs already at room temp with spunding valves to put some pressure on the Brett b&c that I added. I split one vial of each into each keg. Every time I'd taste it, it was really really slowly developing the Brett character, so I used dregs from one 375ml bottle split roughly half of that between two.

I'm convinced that dregs are powerful stuff.

Probably could've gotten there on its own, but the dregs I think sped things along. Previously the taste was typical saison yeast flavor but with a strong, overpowering Nelson sauvin dry hop flavor and aroma. I think the Brett converted most of the presence into lots of great funk. If it gets any more funky, it could possibly be even too much??

Grist was 95% floor malted pils, 5% flaked rye (had intended to use wheat, but apparently I ran out).
Mashed a step mash using the temp rests as given near the end of the book "farmhouse ales"
All Nelson sauvin hops: 34 IBU for 60 minutes, 3.5 oz at flameout, 4 oz dry hops. Note that the late hops ad dry hops are for a ten gallon batch. Added enough acid malt to achieve proper mash pH.
Fermented in primary on my porch in high70-low 90, mostly 78-82 region though, as I don't have a way to monitor time-temp outside. After primary fermentation was over I added dry hops at room temp Five days after I racked to kegs. I left at room temp for a few weeks. Then cold conditioned for a few weeks, then added the Brett. And left at room temp for a couple months.
My OG was higher than I was shooting for by about 6 points, but honestly, I should have been gunning for an even lower OG.
Mine was 1.062. FG last I tested was 1.005, pre dregs. I should test again. It's possible that it went lower, which could help account for my headache this morning!
TD


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