Snacks for Brett to outlast primary?

[TheSkinFlautist]

I am a lover of all things ginger, especially ginger sodas, and as such I have begun experimenting with a few recipes of my own. Alcohol is not a focus of this recipe and in fact I would prefer to limit the final volume to no more than 4%. The primary fermentation will be carried out with a Ginger Beer Plant (weak fermenting culture of a few different microorganisms though a few Sachs and Lacto are most prevalent) and then I would like to funkify it a bit with Brett. I will be doing a few very small, simple test batches to determine which grain I like most. My dilemma is that I would prefer not to add sugar after primary but rather develop a mash which includes complex fermentables that Brett can snack on yet other yeasts cannot. I thought perhaps maybe a bit of malted oats but I'm not sure. Any input would be much appreciated!

To give you an example how simple my mash will be, here is an outline of my first two test batches. All grains unmelted.

Test Batch #1
- Wheat (3:1)
- Rye (1:3)
- Honey

Test Batch #2
- Rye (3:1)
- Wheat (1:3)
- Honey

 

[sweetcell]

develop a mash which includes complex fermentables that Brett can snack on yet other yeasts cannot.

mashing high, like 158-160, should leave behind complex sugars.

another quick and easy solution would be to add some malto-dextrine to your wort.

I thought perhaps maybe a bit of malted oats but I'm not sure. Any input would be much appreciated!

if anything you want to use un-malted oats. malted = more fermentable (that's an over-simplification, but the point remains).

All grains unmelted.

assuming you meant unmalted, you won't have enough enzymes for conversion. your resulting wort will be highly, highly unfermentable. unless you want brett to do all the fermentation, and very slowly, i would add some malted barley to your mash. without a source of enzymes, after the sacch primary you're going to end up with a cloudy "beer" (term used loosely) that will taste very doughy. not pleasant, i assure you. only the honey will be fermented.

 

[TheSkinFlautist]

While reading this the term "enzyme malt" suddenly made sense to. How about a relative handful of that? I was thinking honey malt as well to retain some honey character?

 

[sweetcell]

While reading this the term "enzyme malt" suddenly made sense to. How about a relative handful of that?

i had to look up "enzyme malt" since i had never heard of it. apparently Viking Malts makes one... sounds like a few pounds of that should be sufficient. alternately, malted 6-row barley is high in enzymes but regular malted 2-row, pilsner or wheat malt should do fine. they should make up a minimum of 40% of your malt bill if you want to get decent conversion.

I was thinking honey malt as well to retain some honey character?

good idea! it has no diastatic power but needs to be converted, so it is dependent on the diastatic power of base malts.