Sam at Eureka Brewing has an amazing yeast collection and is sharing some of it with the WORLD! If you didn't already know Sam is a biologist from Switzerland that does some isolating of unique strains. Sam has access to a lot of great beers over in Europe and has used his talent to isolate yeast (Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces) and bacteria. Quickly go read the background and scope of this experiment at Eureka Brewing. I recently came across his list of isolated Brett Strains and thought it would be a lot of fun to experiment with them. Neither of us have any idea how these will taste or perform.
Recipe:
I created a simple recipe that I thought would be interesting enough for us to enjoy the taste of the beer, but not too complex to distract us from the yeast derived flavors. For the recipe, I added some wheat to help with mouthfeel (protein) and long term food source (long chain carbohydrates). Then a small percentage of acid malt was added to give the Brett strains some lactic acid to convert and to also lower the pH for the mash and Brett fermentation.
Logistics:
Sam will be sending the yeast in 1.5 mL vials (mostly to help with international shipping costs). These will need to be built up. I've read that you should build up about 10x each step. I'm planning to brew wit hall 20 strains at once. My goal is to have 20 - .5 gal trials going all at once - here is how I plan to do that.
First Starter Step - 15 ml (~.5 oz)
15 ml Sterile Centrifuge tubes (~$15 and great for saving dregs)
Second Starter Step - 150 ml (~5 oz). Here are my ideas:
250 ml flask w stopper/airlock or foil (laboratory way), but expensive
12 oz beer bottles w stopper or foil (pretty cheap, but the stoppers/airlocks would be pricey)
12 oz water bottles w 1/8" blow-off tubing sealed into cap or foil (cheap)
Main Batch - 1.5 l (~50 oz) - maybe a bit more to get 4 beers worth
64 oz growlers w stopper/airlocks (homebrewer friends have extras - especially with CA laws)
2 liter water bottles w 1/8" blow-off tubing sealed into cap
Evaluation:
We wanted to make sure we standardized the evaluation of the strains. We thought it was best to taste at Month 1 (uncarbonated at bottling), Month 2, Month 6, 1 Year. I have created a Brettanomyces Evaluation Scoresheet (based on the AHA Scoresheet). We will compile the tasting notes, scores and sour/funk ratings.
Brettanomyces Evaluation ScoreSheet (pdf)
This is a Rough Draft - see please add comments
I am aware that this experiment is not possible for everyone, but I think it is important that we evaluate the flavors as best as possible. For my experiment, I will offer 3 spots for the tasting panel at my house. (leave a comment if interested)
I created a simple recipe that I thought would be interesting enough for us to enjoy the taste of the beer, but not too complex to distract us from the yeast derived flavors. For the recipe, I added some wheat to help with mouthfeel (protein) and long term food source (long chain carbohydrates). Then a small percentage of acid malt was added to give the Brett strains some lactic acid to convert and to also lower the pH for the mash and Brett fermentation.
Logistics:
Sam will be sending the yeast in 1.5 mL vials (mostly to help with international shipping costs). These will need to be built up. I've read that you should build up about 10x each step. I'm planning to brew wit hall 20 strains at once. My goal is to have 20 - .5 gal trials going all at once - here is how I plan to do that.
First Starter Step - 15 ml (~.5 oz)
15 ml Sterile Centrifuge tubes (~$15 and great for saving dregs)
Second Starter Step - 150 ml (~5 oz). Here are my ideas:
250 ml flask w stopper/airlock or foil (laboratory way), but expensive
12 oz beer bottles w stopper or foil (pretty cheap, but the stoppers/airlocks would be pricey)
12 oz water bottles w 1/8" blow-off tubing sealed into cap or foil (cheap)
Main Batch - 1.5 l (~50 oz) - maybe a bit more to get 4 beers worth
64 oz growlers w stopper/airlocks (homebrewer friends have extras - especially with CA laws)
2 liter water bottles w 1/8" blow-off tubing sealed into cap
Evaluation:
We wanted to make sure we standardized the evaluation of the strains. We thought it was best to taste at Month 1 (uncarbonated at bottling), Month 2, Month 6, 1 Year. I have created a Brettanomyces Evaluation Scoresheet (based on the AHA Scoresheet). We will compile the tasting notes, scores and sour/funk ratings.
Brettanomyces Evaluation ScoreSheet (pdf)
This is a Rough Draft - see please add comments
I am aware that this experiment is not possible for everyone, but I think it is important that we evaluate the flavors as best as possible. For my experiment, I will offer 3 spots for the tasting panel at my house. (leave a comment if interested)
I am very excited for this Jeff, I grabbed 4 strains to test out and plan to have 2 friends over for tastings at each of the intervals you listed.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
I'm participating as well, and plan to abide by the rules of the experiment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am also planning to try and double the size and let 1/2 age for much longer in secondary (perhaps pitching with some sach at primary). The only experiment I've done with bottling brett (belgian single with C1 and C2 from BKYeast) quickly has resulted in some very good beer as it ages, but I wish I'd let them sit in the carboys for longer.
It's going to be good fun though, and if anyone else in the Boston area participating, we should definitely get together for tastings.
JC,
DeleteThat's a great point and something I forgot to mention. I was going to do a Phase 2 with all the strains by brewing a Belgian single and adding the strains at bottling. I've also had great success with this method and I expect the flavors to be different in secondary versus primary.
Hi JC,
DeleteI'm in the Boston area but missed Sam's deadline for the experiment. If there is any chance that I could get some of the cultures you are propagating, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Cheers!
NB,
DeleteI will let you know what Sam would like to do. He is actually going to be starting a business with sending these yeast strains to homebrewers. He has been very generous with his time and money so far that I'd like to leave it up to him to make a decision about sharing his strains at this point.
Thanks,
Jeff
My phase 2 experiment will be adding the strains to a Saison at bottling and see what impact they have. Phase 3 will be a Berliner Weisse at bottling.
ReplyDeleteI would be very interested in all the phase 2 results as well.
Sam, I was thinking that we would get enough information to be able to put together some charts like this:
Deletehttp://perfectpint.blogspot.com/2012/12/evaluating-yeast-character-part-i_28.html
There could be separate charts for primary fermentation and secondary.
Excellent idea. I am a fan of spiderwebs. Wanted to make some of those for my wheat yeast experiment but got back to bar charts in the end (I was not fully satisfied how they looked). In my opinion, spiderwebs are a great tool to compare different strains.
DeleteDid you ever start the secondary experiment? I was thinking we might do a Saison with 3711 and add Bretts after couple days.
DeleteNot yet Roy. I'll probably be bottling the first stage of the experiment in the next week or so. After that I am planning to probably bottle dose some Saison with each strain.
DeleteI like the scoresheet idea, which should help standardize reporting, but I can see how that is going to translate into a ton of manual data entry for someone down the road (not to mention trying to read people's handwriting). What about creating a Google Form instead? You could either create a Form template that people could download from Google Drive Templates (and then do their own entry and share the spreadsheet with you), or you could have one master form for everyone to enter their data into. Google Forms has permission levels, so a private link or login requirement could be used.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. Ill look into putting something like that together with Sam.
DeleteBasically, this is the sort of thing I was talking about. On the back end, it creates a spreadsheet with all of the results.
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Lu0d8bc-FyuKdlT5YZMRTsxymF-MMyUP-C9AhwKx5V8/viewform
This is legit. I just tested it out it works great. I'll talk with Sam and maybe we can get the contact information for all participants to get feedback on what will work for them.
DeleteI'm curious on what the pitching rates are. How many yeast are we expecting in the 1.5mL vials? According to Chad Yacobsen, in 8-10 days, Brett has a different growth curve than Sacc and should go through 2-3 growth phases that would double cell counts. So calculator like Mr. Malty wouldn't be very accurate for this.
ReplyDeleteI did two 200 mL unstirred DME starters of EBY020 and EBY021 and performed a cell count: For EBY020, I determined a cell concentration of 1.1E6 cells per mL, for EBY021 a cell concentration of 1.5E6 cells per mL. Which means for the 200 mL cultures: 22 billion cells for EBY020 and 30 billion cells for EBY021. This is enough yeast to pitch 2 L (0.53 gal) of wort for the experiment. And the yeast sediment in the starters is about 9 mL which matches what MrMalty gives me for pitching with a yeast slurry.
DeleteFor all further starter step sizes, I would go with http://yeastcalc.com/ and a input of 25 billion yeast cells (from the 200 mL starter).
Further to mention, I inoculated the two 200 mL starters with the same cell densities I am going to send out (1 mL of liquid culture) and it took nearly 10 days to see signs of fermentation. Just as a pre-warning. So please don't reply to me concerning dead, lazy yeast before 14 days into the starter.
Summarizing, expect a cell count of roughly 1.2 million cells in the 1.5 mL vials.
I'll defer to Sam for that info. (I'll ask him to comment). And you are correct about the growth and how it differs from Sacc.
DeleteSo here are my thoughts on all of this...
ReplyDeleteThe google form is great is you (the brewer) is going to be the only person evaluating the brew but I really hope each brewer shares the samples with as many people as possible so that we get more data. With that being said, paper forms would be much easier to hand out to people at a tasting event.
I also think that instead of everyone trying to hit the same ferm temps and aging for the same times we try and spread all our brews out over the space of variables to get a better idea of how these strains behave otherwise it will take us years to characterize all these strains. We need to do more of a shotgun approach this first go around.
But the most important thing here is getting rid of all the free form questions and make everything quantifiable (likert scales or numerical ratings). If we do this, I will volunteer to handle all the data aggregation, analysis and stats. If we have enough "evaluators" we should be able to get a good grasp on which variables affect which strains.
Jeff, I am heading to Berlin tomorrow for a conference but I will be back in a little over a week at which point I can help with creating a new form. I can also probably whip up a web app that not only will help the brewers log tasting notes for each strain but also dynamically produce plots to help visualize the effects of the variable of interest.
Ryan,
DeleteThanks for your feedback. I completely agree that it would be great to experiment with a range of parameters, but our thought was that it would be tough to organize and some don't have the capability. However, we should make sure these variables are recorded. As it might be helpful so that we could explain outliers in the data. I'm also a bit of a stat guy (mostly multi level DOE).
I was trying to think of ways of quantifying results, send me an email and we can discuss some ideas. Jeffrey.E.Crane at gmail.com
One of the original posts I saw made it seem like the goal was to have everyone brew as close to some set temps as possible. Knowing that would be pretty hard and also knowing the range of parameters we have to play with I was simply suggesting we encourage people to do what ever they want as long as they keep detailed notes.
ReplyDeleteMy trip to Berlin is just about over so I will get back to you soon about the evaluation sheets.
I think it was a good point to bring up about the different brewing conditions and Sam cleared this up in his last update. We will need to make sure to get all this information captured in the data.
DeleteLet me know when you have time to discuss. I really like the form Luke created and we can brainstorm to make sure we have everything we need included.
Very excited to see the results of The Great Brett Experiment. And hopefully I'll get to taste some of them too!
ReplyDeleteSame here. I'll see if Sam can post the locations of participants so maybe there will be someone close to you and you can join them for tasting.
DeleteI would have loved to have been a part of this experiment but alas I didn't see it posted on Sam's until it was too late. Hopefully I'll be able to get some of his yeast in the future.
ReplyDeleteJames,
DeleteWe will get you some yeast, it just might not be the first round. Once we build some up I can send some your way.
I am one of the participants in the Great Brett Experiment (all 20). I will be basically be following Jeffrey's suggested starter prep and set up (twenty ½ gallon jugs) and will measure gravity several times along the way with a refractometer.
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting …
Roy
Roy,
DeleteThis will be quite fun. I just got my vials last night and hope to get them in the first set of starters.
Cheers.
Just brewed my first test batch on Saturday. EBY002, 010, 014-015 ,019 in 1-2 gallon batches. Plan to rebrew in a month or so. Hope everyone saves bottles to age and trade.
ReplyDeleteBest,
Luke