What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[Matt Smith]

I'm hoping for atleast 2 or 3 more gravity points, and then perhaps a touch more in the bottle over time. This is a style I'm pumped to keep working on, so I'll see what happens and make adjustments next time. I decided to donate one of my fermenters to brett experiments like this, so not too concerned about contamination.

[Kelly Milligan]

That's rad, hope it turns out well :) Maybe you could look at getting a Brett infested wine barrel from a winery to age! I hear they're super willing to get rid of them with as little publicity as possible ;P

[Dave W]

I just got a Pinot Noir barrel from Paliser Estate last week for $120?

a few of us welly homebrewer's are going to be doing a collab brew in it, and then later this year after the winerys done vintaging we will be doing another with a sav blanc barrel.

wine barrels are 228L so the take a bit of filling.

[Matt Smith]

Haha true, if only you could get 20L ex wine barrels. Actually it would be fun to get one of those 20L miniature oak barrels and dedicate it to funky experiments. 

[Tilt]

Looks good Matt - interested to hear how this one develops over time.

[Matt Smith]

Cheers! I'll post an update down the line

[Matt Smith]

An update if anybody is interested. This has been on the Brett for 13 days now, there hasn't been any signs of activity, its super clear and the airlock hasn't budged since racking. Interestingly though, i took a sample and there is definitely a hint of Brett in there. The gravity read somewhere between 1.010 and 1.011, so given the margin of error for hydrometer readings I can't say if there has been any extra attenuation yet.

I had to move this out of my fermentation fridge to make room for another brew, so I chucked it in the hot water cupboard, and in doing so roused the yeast cake so hopefully that will encourage it a little. I think I'll stretch out the conditioning from 3 weeks to atleast a month, I was really hoping for this to go into bottle at around 1.009.

[Mark]

A decent brett character can take a while to develop, I think the last one I did took between 2 and 3 months for a pellicle to form

[Matt Smith]

That's true, its a bit of a stab in the dark for this beer as it's not meant to be a sour or overly funky beer as such. The goal is for a beer more like Orval, where a fresh bottle gives you a nice, crisp, fresh and hoppy belgian pale ale with a hint of funk, while older bottles start to develop much more brett character. 

[Grant R Baker]

Just brewed a darkened Saison (little bit extra roasted malt in there)... but the local brewshop didn't have the Wyeast French Saison 3711 that I wanted to try

So I umm'ed and arh'ed over Wyeast Belgian Abbey 1214   or Belgian Saison 3724 (which was out of stock too) but in the end settled on Denny's Favorite 50 1450

Attenuation numbers a a bit lower than the Saision yeasts and its temperature range is a bit lower... will try raising the temp over the next week anyway since I want a little fruity ester in this one.

 

No idea how this one will work out or compared to the same brew pitched with good ole S04 (which was very nice)

[Grant R Baker]

Quick update on the Denny's Favorite 50... after racking to secondary it keeps getting over excited when trying to raise its temperature.. I've had to clean the airlock out twice so far.

[Mark Meyburg]

I am not suprised that fermenter is full to the rim !!