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.

[Brendon]

Sounds like a success!

If you end up bottling it, beware bottle bombs as it could still produce plenty of CO2 over a period of time as the brett chews through those more complex carbs... Preferably you'd bulk-age it until the brett was pretty much done (ie many months) before bottling...Otherwise be prepared to check carbonation regularly as they age (and use Champagne/lambic bottles) at your own risk! You could also seal up the keg and leave it for a while, I suppose, if you can spare it.

Seems that all might not be necessary in this case, but yeah.

[Cain Harland]

Yeah Brendon. Its turning out alright, I tried out some a couple of weeks ago when it seemed to be slowing down on the pressure build up. It was a bit weird. I put a 1.25L plastic beer bottle full in the fridge with a carbonation cap and it changed a heap over that time. Most of the weirdness is gone as is a fair bit of the hops to the point its almost boring. But the stuff in the keg at ambiant temp has kept on going and now has so much pressure it rushes out of the picknic tap as foam and has a lot more going on flavour/aroma wise. A top up of the glass of cold conditioned stuff with the warm foamy stuff and it was quite good. My partner who cringed and looked like she might vomit when I gave here a sample a couple of weeks back said this sample was great. Its amazing what a difference a couple of weeks cold conditioning can make sometimes.

I think I will leave the keg on the floor and keep on topping up and presureising the PET bottle each time its almost empty, at least untill the keg starts running low on pressure. That way I can taste it at various points in its evolution.

I'm pretty happy I didn't put it in bottles as its possibly at the bottle bomb stage now, pressure wise and may well keep on produecing CO2 for a long time yet.

[Cain Harland]

I thought I might follow up on this in case any one is interested. Its turned out to be a great success in fact probably the best beer I made last year (OK maybe second after a the milk stout). I infected a second IPA with it too just because I didn't care much for the hop combo in it and the sample of that is great to. There's no sour or horse blanket or anything too weird just a bit of pineapple and a pleasant sweet estery thing going on. Tasty and interesting but nothing too extreme. The Brett C seems to play well with both malt and hops.

I'm contemplating how to design some future IPAs to brew as double batches then split a few days into fermentation dry hopping 1 for quick consumption and ageing the other for a couple months with Brett C.

[David R]

Interesting, are you going to try fermenting one entirely with the Brett or stick with the mixed ferment? I guess splitting a batch as you plan to do will give you a good idea of how much of an impact the secondary ferment with Brett is having on the flavour.

I wonder if with the time and temp required for the Brett to do it's thing it be better of to minimise (or even skip) the late hops in the boil and rely on a big dry hop after the Brett has finished working.

[Cain Harland]

Mixed ferment. I was thinking primary together till dry hop time then rack 1/2 to a keg with Brett and dry hop the other 1/2 as usual. I read somewhere that Brett is more interesting if it has some of the by products of a Sac fermentation to chew up and convert to tasty things. Maybe one day I will do a full Brett and mixed side by side to judge that.

The under attenuation I got from 090 (not sure why pitched lots of active cells into well aerated wort) on those 2 brews worked well in terms of leaving a bit for the Brett to eat. So if I were Bretting the whole thing I would mash at 71c, aerate poorly and use 090 again, to leave lots for the Brett to ferment. But I know that will taste horrible in the other 1/2 so I will have to see if there is enough left in a better attenuated beer for the Brett to do anything interesting with.