Brettanomyces: World Traveller

Back in August of 2012, I was contacted by Lee that lives in Thailand about sending him some different strains of Brett and bacteria. I'm always excited about getting email from readers and thought this would be a cool experience. We figured the easiest way to send the strains would be to send them in used oak cubes (vials could easily be used since Brett has great viability at room temperature). I actually had a small collection going just to give to fellow homebrewers or to use again myself.

• Brett Drie 
• Wyeast Roeselare
• Allagash Confluence Dregs
• White Labs Brett C

After travelling 8,150 miles they arrived to Lee in Chiang Mai, Thailand. If I remember correctly, it was really cheap (~$5) and only took about 5 days. Then Lee in his words:

"Saturday night I put all of the oak chips into starter wort, about 125ml each, of about OG1020. 20 hours later there was OBVIOUS activity building in the Brett Drie. At hour 30 there was also activity building in the Brett C. AS of this morning about hour 38, there were small indications of activity in the Roselare blend."

This news was very exciting for both of us. I was a bit amazed by how quickly he saw activity since these oak cubes were pretty old to start with. The next step in the process was to add some more wort to the starters and build up the cultures, but first Lee "snook" a taste

"Brett C: smells and tasted of English cider with slight hint of spice on the nose.
Allagash: dirt and oak (no action still)
Brett Drie: fruity, citrus, English floral hops(on the nose) and tart. Very long lasting tropical fruit cordial after taste.
Roselare: old dry cheese on the nose. Taste a little fruity and lemon tartness."

And my response on how I like to use each of these strains:

1. Brett Drie - I think you will love it as a primary with some fruity hops.
2. Brett C - I have not had great results by itself but others have. I prefer it as a finishing yeast in secondary of a Saison
3. Roeselare - pitch it all at once with some Sacc or it may never get to the sourness you want.
4. Allagash Confluence - It is great to finish strong Belgians like the beer it came from.

Above are the pictures and below are the descriptions from Lee on the activity after the 2nd addition of wort to the starter:

Roselare has a full thick pellicle. The top of which is furry.
Brett Drie now also has a thin filmy pellicle.
Brett C, no pellicle,lots of yeast settled out AND some of the cubes have fallen to the bottom
Biggest surprise of all was that the Allagash Confluence has started to do something.

And then, "A bit of a let down yesterday when I realised that the activity I thought I had gotten at long last in the Allagash cubes,was in fact mould,and it was kind of like opening the rice cooker on Monday morning after forgetting about it and going away for the weekend".

I'd still say that 3 out of 4 is pretty good. I think the Confluence cubes were the oldest so I'm not totally surprised. Now that the yeast is built up it is time to finally put together a recipe and taste some results. First, was a nice malty wort for the Roeselare dregs:

1st Thailand - San Diego Collaboration Batch - Roeselare

750gr of Vienna
40gr of crystal wheat
Mashed at 69c for 45 minutes
Added about 2.3 quarts of frozen 1023 Munich stout second runnings.
Boiled for 90 minutes.
Added 15IBUs of Fuggle at 60 and another 8IBUs of Fuggle at 30.
Let it cool over night
Morning, pitched about 3gr of Aussie ale yeast and the Roselare starter with oak,pellicle and all.
Activity in 4 hours. 8 hours saw a raging fermentation.


2nd Thailand - San Diego Collaboration Batch - Brett Drie
10ltrs
2lb munich
2lb vienna
2lb pale 2row
250gr raw wheat
250gr crystal wheat.
Hopd were all zythos, an oz at 15,10 & 5.
Came back 30 hours later to see a very thick krausen ring but the krausen its self was on the decline. The room it is fermenting in smells awesomely of overly ripe fruit and something fantastic i have never come across before. 

3rd Thailand - San Diego Collaboration Batch - Brett Split 

13ltr batch:
2.5kg Vienna
0.5kg Munich
250gr raw wheat
250gr table sugar
70 gr Carafa 3
1oz of Tettnanger@60
18gr of EKG@20.
OG was 1063
Pitched LaChouffe re-cultured yeast and let it go at 25c for 6 days before cold crashing it. Took a sample last night and he gravity was 1014.
Split it 3 ways:

FV1: Brett C
FV2: Brett B Trois cubes
FV3: Mix of Orval dregs/Brett C/Brett B Trois

Lee followed my good example and knows a recipe is worthless without following up with tasting notes:

All Brett B Trois Belgian IPA Tasting

Aroma: slightly damp bread and ripe summer fruit preserve.
Mouthfeel: Minimal carbonation and a VERY cream mouth feel, reminds me of Dupont.
Flavor: A lovely tart twang on the palate and a lingering chewy feel. High IBUs are but a faint tingle at the end, followed by toffee and prunes.
Overall: It is far more balanced and easy drinking than the 8.5% and 70+ IBUs should be. It reminds me of a mix of Fresh Bass,Banks's Mild and Old Peculiar. I am very impressed by this, to the point of being enamoured.

Tasting Update:
A few weeks after the first bottle and there has been a flavour change.
The sweet breadiness is somewhat diminished and a HUGE tartness is coming to the forefront! The more the beer warms up,the more the tartness shines through. This is an amazing beer which is going to be hard to keep a hold of for very long.

And it looks like we have another Brett Drie fan as Lee has more plans: "Just started to build up a culture again as I am thinking of using the trois in a berliner weisse; home cultured lacto first and then pitch a big starter of Brett B Trois."

This has been a lot of fun to follow along with Lee's experience and one of the nice parts has been gaining a penpal in Thailand.

The Reason for a Brief Break

I wanted to let you all know the reason for a quick pause on updates. Our daughter, Annabel Grace Crane, was born on Feb 8th. She was quite stubborn to join us, but after 36 hrs of labor we had a healthy baby. We are both enjoying parenthood and learning a lot everyday. I have to add a few pictures as a proud dad (and thankfully she looks mostly like her mother).

 

Don't worry I have few projects in the works. So look for future posts on:

• Building a 4 tap keezer (with a few novel ideas)
• Brewing a split batch, Berliner Weiss (surprisingly my first) and a Belgian Single
• Brewing a Belgian Grand Cru with the majority of flavor coming from homemade candi sugar
• Working with a fellow QUAFF homebrewer on isolating yeast and bacteria from some of my favorite dregs
  

Barrel Pilot Batches: 100% Brett Beer Trials

It has taken some time for the group to decide on what to make for the second fill of our Chardonnay barrel. After we emptied the American Saison we noticed there was still plenty of oak and Chardonnay flavor remaining so the next batch will need to go well with those flavors. We are planning to eventually do a pale colored sour in the barrel, but if there is too much wine character still remaining it might over power the beer with the long contact time needed for souring. We thought a hoppy 100% brett beer would work well and really doesn't need much time in the barrel. The only issue is that none of us have that much experience with the style to jump right into a 60 gal batch. Therefore,Steven (the barrel babysitter) and I have been working on a couple pilot batches.

The first batch we wanted to build up and test that new strain of Brett Custersianus (Yes, Custer's anus) sent to me by Don at Small Place Big Brews. Steven had already planned to brew a Belgian Wit beer and both of us thought the description of ECY019 Brett Custersianus sounded like it would work well. So here is the recipe for that beer:


Recipe: Belgian Wit

Batch Size 12.0 gal         O.G.-1.057       F.G.-TBD
IBU-18.6                          SRM-5.4         ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):
11 lb Pilsner Malt (52%)
6.6 lb Raw White Summer Wheat (31%)
1.65 lb CaraRed (8%)
.9 lb Acid Malt (4%)
.9 lb Flaked Wheat (4%)

Hops:
.55 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 60 min 16 IBU
.3 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 15 min 2 IBU
.3 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 10 min

Spices:
10 g Coriander Seed
.5 lb Crushed Kumquat
1 g Black Pepper

Yeast:
WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale - 5 gal
ECY019 Brett Custersianus - 5 gal

Mash/Boil Details:
Protein Rest. Temp/Time: 122F @ 30min
Sacc Rest. Temp/Time: 148F @ 75min
Boil Time: 90min

So that plan didn't work too well, the gravity didn't move and no change in taste for a week  We think we tried to step it up to 5 gals too quickly and didn't have enough yeast (This is a time when the brew day was planned before the beer). Thankfully Steven is an extremely clean brewer and nothing else started to ferment. At that point, we talked and decide to add some wine yeast. I've wanted to experiment with wine yeasts in beer (some good info here and here) and this seemed a good time. The wine yeast kicked in and fermented to 1.020 (it is incapable of fermenting maltotriose), so we are hoping the Brett will kick in (per Steven's last check it seems so). This might be an interesting beer that will need some time to finish out. Not sure how this will turn out, so we decided to start another batch.

We decided to go with the Brett Drie strain since I have a good amount of experience with it. The flavor profile we really want to hit with this beer is " intense juicy tropical fruit flavors in a well balanced, medium mouthfeel beer". We have picked out the malt bill to help with building body (Because Brett can't produce glycerol, which helps with mouthfeel). We also wanted some complex sugar (from CaraMunich) because in my experience that helps Brett Drie produce more fruit esters. We plan to mash a tad high at 153-154 to prevent the beer from drying out too much.

Next the hop bill, we want to hop burst this for max flavor and aroma with just enough IBUs to help balance the beer. I'm thinking around 30, since Brett seems to accentuate bitterness and we will have some "perceived" bitterness with the flameout and dry-hopping. We are thinking of a blend of hops:

• Belma for its round tropical notes and it's cheap ($5/lb when it was available)
• Citra for the melon notes
• Nelson for the passion fruit (matches well with the esters from Brett Drie).

I found both Citra and Nelson in bulk, so we'll have plenty when we step it up to the barrel. I got them from Label Peelers, which also had some Amarillo and Mosaic so those will find themselves in some beer soon. I'm think of making a series of single hop pale ales to have on draft. I'm think they will be super short brew sessions with extract, a 15 min boil, and lots of late hops - my goal is to brew under an hour.

Recipe: Hoppy Brett Beer

Batch Size 5.0 gal         O.G.-1.065          F.G.-TBD
IBU-33                          SRM-7                ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):
2 Row Malt Grain 8.000 lb
Wheat, Flaked Grain 2.000 lb
Caramunich Malt Grain 8.000 oz 56 L
Oats, Flaked Grain 16.000 oz
Acid Malt Grain 6.000 oz

Hops
2 oz Belma 9.8% -15 min 23 IBUS
1 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5% - 5.000 min 10.2 IBUs

Whirlpool
0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5%
0.5 oz Belma 9.8%
0.5 oz Citra 12.0%

Dry Hop
0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5%
0.5 oz Belma 9.8%
0.5 oz Citra 12.0%

Yeast:
Drie Brett

Mash/Boil Details:
Sacc. Rest 153 F

As we I'm writing this, we just decided to make this a 10 gal batch and try the Alchemist's Heady Topper, Conan yeast that Derek at Bear Flavored Ales sent me recently.

I'll post tasting notes of the two pilot batches soon.