Timeframes for a bret IPA

[Cain Harland]

What are the timeframes for fermenting an IPA with Brettanomyces claussenii?

In my quest to add a bit of body and sweetness to my beer without crystal malt (I generally get very high attenuation but I like a little sweetness and don't like excessive crystal), I may have taken things a little to far with mashing high and created an APA that's too sweet even for my sweet tooth. Its carbonating at the moment so I won't know for sure for a few days yet. So I was thinking why not brew a very dry IPA (base malt only and mash low, and maybe a good amount of dextrose) to blend with it. Next thought is maybe ferment that second beer with Brettanomyces claussenii for a bit of sour pineapple funk. But obviously time is a factor here as the original beer isn't going to keep forever.

My other thought was adding the Bret to the keg and attach spunding valve and let the Bret chew up some of the sugars the sac couldn't. Anyone have an Idea how Bret would handle going in an already carbonated keg? And the beer is currently 1.018ish would the remaining sugar be enough to get much of a Bret flavor? And again how long do people thing this might take.

[oliver]

In my experience Brett C from whitelabs in primary performs much the same as your run of the mill sach. strain as far as attenuation goes (great flavours though). It'll take a lot longer to rip through the remaining long chain sugars I'd say, you're looking at months rather than days/weeks. If you want a dry beer post primary I'd use something like a french saison or whatever MJ now call M27 ;). Orval add brett at bottling and it generates lots of character over time. Brett can generate funk in pretty inhospitable environments, give it a go I say :)

[Cain Harland]

Thanks for the info. I pretty much hate saison so that's out for me, but I have really enjoyed a couple of hoppy bret beers. The beer is now carbonated enough to judge and it has good hops and clean fermentation character but is horrendously sweet. It had almost 2 week primary with a 2L starter of 090 into 20L of well aerated wort and fermented very actively for a few days so I'm blaming the hot mash rather than stuck fermentation, either way the bret should sort it out.

I went ahead and ordered and decompressed the keg to 3 psi so I will just have to see how it goes. I think I will just leave it at ambient temp and leave the spunding valve at 3 psi for a few days then close it off and use pressure as bit of a gauge of progress, probably release at 30psi of something. Might transfer to bottles once it shows signs of fermentation, the lazyness in me says no but it might be interesting to taste it changing over time.

[oliver]

Cool yeh be interested to hear how it goes :)

[Cain Harland]

I noticed after pitching the Bret was right on expiry date. I probably would have made a starter if I noticed earlier. I also threw the dregs of the vile in a 500ml starter to keep for later its taking forever to get started so here's hoping its not a dud, it doesn't have that much work to do to get from 1.018 to a reasonable FG so might be alright.

[Cain Harland]

Took 3 days for the starter to get going another 5 for it to ferment out to the point where there is not any sweetness to taste in it. I don't usually judge starters by taste but was interested, it wasn't very interesting, clean, thin, dry and vinagery but then it was a weak, un-hopped, un-interesting wort on a stirplate without the leftovers of a saccharomyces fermentation to work with.

The keg is moving much slower its at about 7psi after 9 days. I figure at 30 to 40psi it would have chewed through about .005 SG. Feel free to correct me on that assumption. So a long way to go yet. At that point I will start spunding and tasting it, I'm guessing I will want a bit more attenuation but no more pressure. And chuck it in the keggerator when the appropriate level of sweet/dryness is reached.

[David R]

What temp are you fermenting it at? Brett likes it warm, could that have a negative effect on the hop flavour of the beer?

I wasn't overly fussed with my Brett C IPA tbh, but I have enjoyed several of the commercial Brett-IPAs I've had.

[Cain Harland]

Garage floor temp 'cause I've got other things requiring temperature control. I'm sure both the temperature and the time won't be kind to the hops but if I'm really lucky the pineapple funk will play well with what is left.

Its going very slowly, so slowly in fact that I was worried nothing was happening so I opened the keg and threw in 1/2 the little bottle I had made from the starter and was keeping for later. At least I know there was a reasonable number of living cells in there, unlike the 6 month old vial. 4 days later and its only just started to build a little pressure again.

It may well turn out terrible but it was undrinkably sweet anyway and that is coming from guy who likes a sweet beer.

[David R]

I just checked my spreadsheet to jog my memory, I fermented mine at 24C and it stopped at 1.011 (79% attenuation). Has the FG moved at all?

[Cain Harland]

I should have checked when I had the top open. I planned on using pressure as a indication but checking FG is a good idea. Now I a bit reluctant to let any more oxygen in or to put Bret contamination through my regular taps, I will for serving but the sanitizing is too much effort just for a  sample. I have a picnic tap on order so will test when that arrives. I would be very happy with 1.011.

[Cain Harland]

So weirdly pressure stabilized at about 7psi so I took a sample and refractometer reading is exactly the same but the taste has dried out a bit and after a quick force carbonation its tasting pretty good

[David R]

Interesting, glad it's worked out ok!

[Cain Harland]

I think I will leave it at least another week and have another sample, hopefully it will dry out a little more, but yeah it was quite drinkable