WLP644 -Brett B Trois

[WilliamWS]

good to hear

 

[smokinghole]

Just to be clear, any sacc in your beer?

Not unless I somehow cross contaminated the beer.

 

[Quaker]

30% Pils (4lbs)
22.5% Vienna (3lbs)
15% Malted Wheat (2lbs)
7.5% Munich (1lb)
7.5% Malted Rye (1lb)
7.5% Rolled Oats (1lb)
9% Crystal 55 and Honey Malt, because I had a little of each left over from other beers.

Hops are an equal parts blend of Pacific Jade/Cascade/Amarillo
45g (15g each) @ 15 minutes
45g flameout
45g dry hop

Update on the above batch brewed 9-Dec. After a few weeks in the States for the holidays, I returned on 4-Jan and removed the fruit. That was quite the mess, because on 17-Dec I removed the blow-off tube prior to traveling. It built up a fair amount of pressure. I had vented it quickly with a gas connection, then immediately opened the lid. As soon as I broke the seal it started gushing. I believe I lost a pint in the whole process. Eventually vented it, removed the fruit bags, and added the dry hops.

I just removed those after 3 days and took a sample cup. Wonderful tropical fruit aroma, there is definitely apricot in there, but it's not a dominant element. It has a sweet white wine like aroma as well - not boozy, but sweet. The taste is again all tropics. The hop blend melds well with the rest. No dominant hop flavors stand out. Apricot is stronger in the flavor than in the aroma, but again not too overt. The bitterness is balanced, which is to say not noticeable, but not missing. There is a little prickly tartness, could be Brett based and could also be from the CO2 in solution from the fruit fermentation under pressure. Force carbing to the final level may accentuate the tartness and bitterness a little more. Mouthfeel is what I wanted from adding the rye. Decent body. A little coating on the outer edges of the mouth, but dry on the tongue. There is no astringency in this one which did develop in the original batch. I assumed that was from the whole fruit skins and pits used.

We'll see after a few weeks, carb'ing, and serving, but the only thing I might change is to increase the bitterness. I wouldn't include a bitterness charge still. But I might move the 15min addition to 20min or include a hot stand to draw some from the flameout addition or simply increase all additions (that's the most likely one). With White Labs making this a year-round strain, this will be a repeat brew in this house.

 

[Coff]

Anyone else have any issues with carbonation? I'm bottling a 9.7% RIS brewed with 100% Trois in the next couple of days. Anybody with much experience with Trois think I'll have carb issues without repitching?

I actually did experience long conditioning times. I tried the first bottle at 20 days and it was under carbed and tasted like I had bottled it 3 days prior it was quite odd. However, I have had this problem with my last 3 brett beers so it probably my process or just the temp of my basement.

At 8 weeks it was effervescent and fully conditioned, however I am not a huge fan of the beer at this point. I agree with Smokinghole's assessment of this strain in a low gravity wort. Maybe my 1.065 IPA will be better.

 

[TNGabe]

Gah! I'm brewing a brown wheat beer, 1.060 OG, and going to pitch Trois. I'm not sure I've ever used more than 6 ozs of hops in a beer before. Planning on 4 oz Amarillo, 2oz Citra, 1 oz Nelson at 5 minutes, then chilling to 170ish and stir-pooling with the same.

Good idea? Bad? About 45 minutes left on the boil, so I guess it's too late to turn back now.

 

[badlee]

with that much Citra and Amarillo, I would drink i even if you fermented it with bread yeast:cross:

 

[loctones]

I took a sample of my Old Ale with 644 added to secondary tonight. It's had the 644 in secondary for a total of 6 months. Gravity was 1.021 when I pitched the brett, and it's down to 1.010 now. There was a heavy solvent aroma when I tried it a couple months ago, which has subsided for the most part. The brett characteristics are still pretty minor. I get a leather aroma which fades in about 10 minutes, and a very minor hay-like aroma. Flavor contributions aren't much, so far. For this beer, the 644 in secondary doesn't seem to be adding too much, other than attenuating the beer further.

 

[flyingfinbar]

Ok, so 18 days ago I brewed a saison'ish beer into which I pitched 644. I took a sample today, and its right at 1.014. I sort of expected it to be a little drier! Here's the grain bill: 5lb pils, 1lb wheat malt, 1lb rye, 1lb 6 row, 1lb flaked oats, 12oz Munich and 8oz aromatic....complex, I know. I mashed at 150.

I didn't account for the 90min boil, so I ended up adding about a gallon of water to 1.072 wort to get to 1.060, and I pitched a big healthy starter. Fermentation was mostly in the low 70's, and it took off wildly within 12 hours,

Should I expect this to attenuate any further? There's no krausen left, but some weird looking floaties hanging around the top.

 

[WilliamWS]

From what I saw in my RIS I'd guess you'll probably get 1-2 points lower...just a guess.
Mine went from 1.094 to 1.034 in under 3 days, seemed fairly stable at 1.023 after 2 weeks. But over the course of another four weeks dropped to 1.020 where it stayed.
I bottled at 8 1/2 weeks. Waiting for it to carb now, can't wait. It was delicious out of the fermenter, very similar to JP Madrugada Obscura. I was really surprised how tart it got (but then again I added a ton of O2 before pitching, like I would have if using sacc on a wort this big).

 

[highgravitybacon]

,
Should I expect this to attenuate any further? There's no krausen left, but some weird looking floaties hanging around the top.

I have a one gallon jug of a small batch sitting here with little I-shaped bits that appeared a few days after krausen fell. It's some sort of odd growth that brett beers get. It happens in starters I make too. I pulled some brett out of a bottle of Goose Island Matilda. Tart as a motherf-er after a few weeks at room temp. The little floaties appear and disappear from time to time. After a good meal, I pass a little gas too sometimes. It's not bad manners, just good food. Perhaps Brett is just relaxing after a nice meal.

 

[bigljd]

Very good data feedback. I'm starting to realize that the info I shared a few weeks ago about temperature and Trois is probably not correct. I think the yeast just needs time to finish it's process. I was trying to rush it by warming it up, but I think it just needed time to do it's thing.
I kegged and force carb'd my Janets brown 100% Trois a couple nights ago, and it's delicious. Tastes more like a black IPA than brown, but that's just from the Janet's brown recipe being very hoppy. You'd never know it was a brett beer, just a bit fruity with no funk. Unfortunately I have to share this with our brew club so I can only drink a little bit of it . Gonna have to brew another one like this soon.

Just a follow up on this brew from last fall - we shared all 5 different 100% Trois brews including my Trois Janet's Brown with about 100 people at a brew club meeting last December and it went over well. Many people could not tell they were brett beers. I had also bottled 10 bottles of my Trois Janet's Brown for the VP of Education to share at a sour/brett beer tasting event that he had planned. The event didn't happen until last weekend, when I finally got re-united with some of the beer I brewed last October and hadn't drank since last December. I was amazed at how much it had changed after 3 months in the bottle at room temp.

The beer had been bottled from a chilled keg - it spent about 2 months in the kegorator before bottling, but apparently there was still enough brett in there to start back up again in the bottle. The flavor had gone from a clean, hoppy brown ale to a brett dominated, complex funky beer in just 3 months. Very earthy, funky flavors had taken over, and IMO it is much better than 3 months ago. I've got one more bottle of it to drink.

The bottles are a bit more carbonated than before (if given another 3 months we possibly could have had some bottle bombs). I gave the beer about 6 weeks in primary in a pretty warm environment back when it was brewed, so I thought all the sugars had been consumed.

It would appear that 100% brett beers will ferment cleanly in primary, but if you bottle them and give them some time, the brett will revert back into funkification mode, and the character will dramatically change. Beware too of potential bottle bombs.

I'd like to rebrew this in the spring and let it secondary all summer and bottle it for the fall. I'd like to see if 100% brett primary beer will funk out if left in secondary for a while. Maybe being under pressure in a bottle is what causes the brett to turn funky.

 

[bovineblitz]

I agree with you here. Mine tastes dry and has the cidery "too much simple sugar" flavor even though no simple sugars were used. Also, mine has been in the bottle since September and still has very low carbonation. It ended at 1.006 and I primed just as I would with any other beer.

I used brett C in a small saison as the primary strain, it's quite nice. My understanding is that trois tends to play better with hoppier beers through interaction with the various chemicals in the hops, and C works better when standing alone.

I'm about to culture up a pretty big starter of trois... I was thinking about stepping it up to 1L, then 3L, then 2gal.

 

[gamb0056]

It would appear that 100% brett beers will ferment cleanly in primary, but if you bottle them and give them some time, the brett will revert back into funkification mode, and the character will dramatically change.

I wonder then if the difference is aerobic vs anaerobic (or at least 02 depleted) environments. I seem to remember reading somewhere that many Brett species produce more funky acids & esters under anaerobic conditions. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[COWildBrew]

Has anyone seen the yeast available lately? I've been searching online because my LHBS said they were not told its year round and don't think they will be getting another shipment from White Labs for some time. Any ideas?

 

[bovineblitz]

Has anyone seen the yeast available lately? I've been searching online because my LHBS said they were not told its year round and don't think they will be getting another shipment from White Labs for some time. Any ideas?

http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/search.php?search_query=wlp644&x=-1387&y=-69

$3 shipping if all you get is the yeast.

 

[WilliamWS]

Yep, we have it at our lhbs.

 

[COWildBrew]

http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/search.php?search_query=wlp644&x=-1387&y=-69

$3 shipping if all you get is the yeast.

I just saw that, I've never had to ship yeast, is going without the ice pack alright to Colorado this time of year? With the ice pack its ~$12 for shipping. I'm just thinking of the item sitting in a warehouse somewhere getting warmer.

 

[dstar26t]

Lucky for you, unlike brewers yeast, Brett doesn't mind being stored at room temp.

 

[COWildBrew]

Lucky for you, unlike brewers yeast, Brett doesn't mind being stored at room temp.

Right on, I thought I heard that somewhere but wasn't sure. I appreciate the help.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Brewed up a simple NZ pale ale (...again, just love how the subtle hints of tropical citrus pairs with this bretts mango and pineapple esters)

3gal Batch
4pds 2-row
1 pd Munich
.5 Carapils
4oz cane sugar (BIAB, sugar used to hit target gravity of .048 due to low efficiency.)

.5oz 13% Pacific Jade @FWH (38IBU)
.25oz Motueka 7.5% @15 (5IBU)
.25oz Motueka 7.5% @3 (1IBU)

Sample tasted like golden graham cereal
Pitched jar from last batch about 2 months ago, brought to room temp, decanted and pitched about 30ml of thick slurry. Airated by shaking.
Will report back!

 

[dcp27]

Just thought I'd share that in a recent competition we scored a 36 with a 100% brett trois IPA (palisade, citra & galaxy) in Cat23. Sadly, it didn't land a medal in the mini-BOS tho. I preferred the cleaner brett brux portion of this batch (15gals: 1/3 trois, 1/3 brux, 1/3 both), but the high fruitiness of the trois went really well with the hops. tons of tropical fruit.

 

[JLem]

Brewed up a simple NZ pale ale (...again, just love how the subtle hints of tropical citrus pairs with this bretts mango and pineapple esters)

3gal Batch
4pds 2-row
1 pd Munich
.5 Carapils
4oz cane sugar (BIAB, sugar used to hit target gravity of .048 due to low efficiency.)

.5oz 13% Pacific Jade @FWH (38IBU)
.25oz Motueka 7.5% @15 (5IBU)
.25oz Motueka 7.5% @3 (1IBU)

Sample tasted like golden graham cereal
Pitched jar from last batch about 2 months ago, brought to room temp, decanted and pitched about 30ml of thick slurry. Airated by shaking.
Will report back!

I made a Brett Trois batch with Motueka hops last summer. It was spectacular. Those NZ hops and this strain seem to really complement each other. I should plan on making something similar this year.

 

[NcBrewer35]

I wonder then if the difference is aerobic vs anaerobic (or at least 02 depleted) environments. I seem to remember reading somewhere that many Brett species produce more funky acids & esters under anaerobic conditions. Can anyone confirm this?

I believe you are correct, I think this is in the "Wild Brews" book.

 

[loctones]

Hey, quick question: most people seem to be using wlp644 as a primary strain (which is what WL indicates), but you added it to secondary. I just added it to a Quad/Imperial Saison (somewhere between 13-14% abv) and was wondering about your experience with it so far.

I've read your post that indicated a mild hay and leather aroma, but not much flavor. That was a couple of months ago. Anything change?

folkysaint PM'ed me and was okay with me replying in the thread. As far as aroma and flavor contribution are concerned, things haven't changed much. My beer is an old ale, and the brett took it down from 1.021 to 1.009. The brett has been in the beer for almost 8 months, now. As expected, the mouthfeel is pretty thin and the flavor is not great. I ended up adding some oak in hopes that it can add a bit more mouthfeel to the beer--it helped on an over-attenuated barleywine I made a couple of years ago.

In general, I think that it might not have been a great idea to add this to an old ale, but I'm going to give the beer another 6 months and see how it turns out. As far as extra attenuation is concerned, the brett has done it's job, and it is, so far, not dominating the beer. In secondary, this yeast may be helpful in adding extra attenuation without heavy amounts of typical brett characteristics. I think it might work very well in drying out a big saison.

 

[Almighty]

I can concur about the use in secondary. It lends a very mild "Brett" character that is more to the stone fruit flavors rather than the barnyard. The intensity of flavor is restrained and gives just a hint that the beer is a Farmhouse style beer with a mixed fermentation.

It is a stark contrast to the huge intensity of fruit it produces as a primary strain.

 

[mhenry41h]

I can concur about the use in secondary. It lends a very mild "Brett" character that is more to the stone fruit flavors rather than the barnyard. The intensity of flavor is restrained and gives just a hint that the beer is a Farmhouse style beer with a mixed fermentation.

It is a stark contrast to the huge intensity of fruit it produces as a primary strain.

Agreed almighty. In fact, my Golden Strong with a split Brett Drei/ECY 09 primary is too fruity for my taste. It overwhelms the beer.

 

[folkysaint]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up adding it to my "Imperial Saison" (for lack of a better term). I didn't want to overwhelm with funk (as this is my first Brett beer). I also had some flavors from pomegranate molasses and the primary yeast that I wanted to remain as well.

Looking forward to seeing what the 644 does with it.

 

[mhenry41h]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up adding it to my "Imperial Saison" (for lack of a better term). I didn't want to overwhelm with funk (as this is my first Brett beer). I also had some flavors from pomegranate molasses and the primary yeast that I wanted to remain as well.

Looking forward to seeing what the 644 does with it.

It's the "nice" part about the Drie strain: I can't foresee any environment in which it will overwhelm a beer with traditional "Brett character."

 

[lunshbox]

This past weekend I bottled my all-brett saison that used trois. It finished out at 1.001. It is dry, but the overwhelming fruit character more than compensates. I also dry-hopped a portion of it with Citra and Amarillo. It was almost too much to handle.

I used pale malt and a malt called "heritage" that is almost like a Munich. I added flaked oats to give the brett something to chew on.

I want to see how this ages. I have 4 bottles marked in 6 month increments that will be cellared for testing.

One everything is carbed up, I will be willing to set up a bottle exchange.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Great thread!

Ordered this strain and intend to make an IPA, using a little different grain bill.

Here's what I intend, for 27 liters. Thoughts?

Castle Pale 68.8%
Flaked wheat 18.8%
Crystal 50 6.3%
flaked oats 6.3%

1.067 OG
53.9 ibus

Apollo 30 grams FWH 90 minutes

35 grams each of Chinook, Kohatu (NZ Amarillo from what I understand) and Citra at knock out.

25 grams of Chinook, Kohatu and Citra for dry hops.

I intend to make a decent sized starter, thinking 2 or 3 steps with a stirplate. Intend to maybe NOT aerate the beer as I don't want to increase acetic acid. Mash @ 155, ferment in the mid 70s. 100% Brett. Drink youngish, at 7 weeks, on draft. I don't really want any funk, just looking for that heavy fruit I've been reading about.

Thoughts on any of this?

Thanks for any input.