Fruit Beer Apricot Brett

[newkirk]

Recipe Type

Extract

Yeast

Brettanomyces Claussenii

Batch Size (Gallons)

3

Original Gravity

1.070

Final Gravity

1.006

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

22

Color

pale golden (6-8)

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

10days @ 68F

Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

5-10days @ 68F

Additional Fermentation

14-30days if bottling

Tasting Notes

apricot-dominant with citrus, pineapple, and other less distinct tropical fruit notes

First post, be gentle. I brewed for a few years back in the early 90s, returned to it a couple years ago now.

This is a favorite of mine, which I’ve not yet converted to all-grain. (well, 7 lb Belgian Pilsner malt 152F 90min BIAB instead of the LME & DME, but I’ve not brewed it yet - later this month)

The base style is a Belgian Blond ale, with two huge alterations: the addition of about 1lb/gallon of Apricot puree, and 100% Brettanomyces Claussenii fermentation. (the BrettC brings a noticeable but generally mild funkiness, and strong fruity notes, most notably a pineapple-y character) BJCP category would (I guess) be either Fruit or Brett.

Finishing and dry hopping with (a favorite) New Zealand Wai’iti hops further accentuates the fruitiness of the apricot and the BrettC. Changing the Wai'iti would noticeably alter the outcome.

Resulting flavor is apricot-dominant with citrus, pineapple, and other less distinct tropical fruit notes, and a pervasive but not dominant funk. Slightly tart fruity aftertaste. One of my favorite summer evening drinks.

Recipe sized for a 2.5gallon keg – I learned the first time that the combination of Apricot Puree and BrettC bottle-conditioned leads to amazingly large fluffy yeast floaties, and the BrettC easily leads to overcarbonation – kegging eliminates both issues. (my first batch the bottles tended to foam over when opened, for the first 5-10 minutes, with huge fluffy yeast clumps)

I’ve used canned pure apricot puree, and also scalded/peeled/pitted/pureed fresh apricots - both work great, but when I can get flavorful fresh apricots in-season I prefer them. (maybe something about seeing fruit instead of a can)

The krausen on this brew is fascinating – thick and persistent, and vividly apricot-colored. Half the time it HAS NOT FALLEN, I’ve needed to use a sanitized bottling wand to punch a hole through it for the dryhop addition! 1"-2″ thick floor-scrubber-textured layer just doesn’t want to go away.

I also have to comment that when a couple cups are reduced to a syrupy consistency on the stove it makes a fantastic glaze for ham, together with cracked black peppercorns and a little sea salt.

1 lb carapils

1 lb pilsner DME
1/8 tsp. Fermcap-S
1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (5% AA) - FWH and 60min boil

3 1/4 lb Pilsner LME (10 min)
1/2 oz Wai'iti hops (3% AA) (10 min)

4 oz clear candi syrup (flameout)
1/2 tsp. yeast nutrient
3 lb apricot puree (primary)
2 pkg WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii

1/2 oz Wai'iti hops (dryhop last 5-7 days)
1/2 oz Mosaic (HBC369) hops (dryhop last 5-7 days)


Steep carapils/carafoam for 30 mins at about 155, start raising temps and pull grain in 170s.

Add 1 lb Pils dry malt extract and a few drops of Fermcap-S and stir well, then add EKG first-wort-hops and bring to a boil.

Boil 50 mins, then start stirring in 3.25 lbs Pils liquid malt extract, slowly enough to not stop boil. When LME is all mixed in, add Wai'iti finishing hops and boil another 5-10 mins.

Remove from heat, pull hops, stir in Candi Syrup and yeast nutrient and cool.

While cooling, add puree directly to sanitized carboy, along with 2 tubes of WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii followed by cooled wort, aerate well.

Ferment mid-60s to low-70s, give it at least two weeks. If bottling I suggest giving it at least a month in the carboy first. Don't even think about bottling until the gravity is below 1.008, it will likely make it down to 1.006. Effervescent and well-carbonated is ideal for this beer, but it's easy to misjudge bottling sugar additions with Brett, which literally eats other yeast, aromatic esters, wood, and just about everything else.


I've usually hit about 1.065 OG before adding in the Apricot puree. In theory I think that's expected to add 1.006 per pound per gallon? So I calcualte from a predicted OG of about 1.070. With a final gravity of 1.006 every time I've brewed it, that comes to about 8.5%-8.85% ABV.

j

 

[melloworchard]

This sounds great, thanks for sharing!

 

[newkirk]

This is a pic of the last batch in April. (rebrewing BIAB in a couple weeks) About three weeks from brewing, fermentation is basically done, 1.007 at this point. I had to sanitize my bottling wand and shove the dryhop sack through this dense unsinking layer.

Really one of the weirdest krausens I've ever seen.

j

 

[newkirk]

Update for anyone interested. I acquired and pureed and froze apricots ending with just under 3lb a couple months ago. Then it took a while to get around to brewing this again.

I also grew up 2liter starters of three bretts, cold-crashed and archived two jars of each: WLP645 Brett Claussenii (as before), Brett Drie (harvested from Avery Anniversary 22, all-Drie and delightful), and another Brett (a Brux I suspect) harvested from a bottle of Allagash Midnight Brett. The latter two are reputedly (per the brewery websites, brewery blogs, whatever) single-strain brews from primary to bottles. I brewed a 3 qt pilot batch of Midnight Brett clone several months ago, last bottle a few weeks ago was gaining fruit and depth nicely as it aged.

I decided scale up the recipe up a bit (all-grain) and ended up with about 4 gallons at about 1.068 starting gravity. Fermented as follows:

One 3-gallon carboy with 2.5gallon including 3 lb of apricot puree.

One 1-gallon jug with .75 gallon plus 5 oz each blackberries and raspberries, pureed.

One 1-gallon jug with .75 gallon unfruited.

All got the same yeast treatment, pitching rates approximated as I poured into each but ratios of the three yeasts were the same. (premixed from one jar of each, decanted and blended two into the third)

Apricot-treated portion clogged my airlock, then blew the cap off the carboy and proceeded to vomit krausen all over itself. And this was between 15 and 18 hours post-pitch, at 68F ambient. All three were visibly active within 1-2 hours, really ripping along by 24hrs, and settling down by 4-5 days.

Getting ready to package in a few days, gravity readings of the two 1-gallon jugs were 1.003 and 1.002 tonight. (pitched yeast 12 days ago) Airlocks have been passive for a few days. The Apricot will be getting a 2.5 gallon Torpedo keg coming available next weekend, this weekend the other two will go into 7-8 375ml bottles each. (after my first batch of Apricot I'm leery of bottle-conditioning this but think I can keep it under control)

Looks like this trio of Bretts are pretty ridiculous together fermentation-wise, we'll see how the results turn out one and three months down the road. (Also being Thanksgiving I was thinking I'd be interested in trying a reduction of the berry variant - the apricot was great last year as a ham glaze at Thanksgiving)

Will report again in a few weeks when I've tasted early samples.

j

 

[newkirk]

Well, damn. I never did follow up on this, sorry.

To summarize briefly, I drank all the apricot over the course of the following couple of months, and wasn't so thrilled with where it was going with the later delayed contributions from one of the bretts, getting tarter and almost harsher tasting. (this in a keg kept at 37F) Plans are to stick with the solo WLP645 in the future for the Apricot.

Now the 2-berry variant I really kinda like the brett blend, enough that I brewed a 2.25gal batch of just that and kegged it, still drinking a couple glasses a week of it now.

But the surprise winner of the trio was the unfruited, in later tastings - 1 375ml bottle left, want to wait til it's around 12 months to try it but am planning a rebrew before then. Comes across as something I think of as almost "lambic-adjacent" - at last tasting (~6 months) it was just getting rolling, deepening in complexity. Funky, tangy, sorta fruity, many layers. I'd love to start some solera action some day, possibly starting with this base.

Anyway, apologies if anyone had been wondering how this turned out. In a few weeks I plan a solo-645 rebrew of the Apricot (2.5lb pureed apricots in the freezer ready) and the overflow this time will get a gallon jug with 3/4lb Pluot puree, just because. I'll try to post here about the Pluot outcome, but no promises...

I've also added WLP650 Brett Brux and WLP640 Brett Anomalus to my collection of yeast cultures, so future split-batch yeast experiments are in the works. (I have five Bretts plus WLP644 Sacc Brux all lined up for this) The starter I grew and archived of the 640 smelled rather similar to the 645, but maybe more citrusy, I want to compare the same wort fermented with each to really get a feel for the similarities and differences, then give them 6-12 months and see how they change.

Oh, and one important note - I opened a 750 of an early extract batch of Apricot Brett (23 months in the bottle, since Halloween 2015) last week and it's held up amazingly well, no significant change in flavor or tartness with the solo BrettC Apricot after almost two years. (One 32oz half-growler swingtop is all that's left of that batch now) As with many previous bottles, it overflowed foam and fluffy yeast clumps, but more restrained and delayed, like it was saying "oh, I guess you expect me to foam over now, right?" first, then stirring itself slowly to action.

j