Bottle conditioning a Brett Saison with 3711

[filthyastronaut]

Hello everyone,

I've been trying to develop house beers, and I want one of them to be a Saison. I work at a local brewery that uses French and Brett for all of our saisons, and I would like mine to have a similar flavor with some more hop character. I don't think the Brett ever gets the chance to do anything for the flavor of the beer (I honestly don't really get why we use it at all) because it always has a quick primary fermentation and then sits in a cold brite and kegs for its lifespan. The character of 3711 is very apparent and I would never guess that there's Brett in it. I want to bottle condition this beer and have it around all of the time, so a quick turnaround would be necessary, but I'm concerned about the safety and possible waste from over-carbonation. I was thinking that because 3711 practically super-attenuates on its own that I could possibly just bottle without priming and let the Brett carbonate the beer with the few remaining gravity points. Has anybody tried this? How would a single gravity point translate to volumes of CO2? Ideally I'd have a typical 3711 Saison with a really long and dynamic shelf-life from the Brett, and I'd be able to take advantage of an endless supply of free yeast.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Ugh. Commercial sales and "more hops". I'll give my opinion but it wont match best marketing practices (i.e. the current over-hopping fad) for a brew pub...

Saisons are NOT supposed to be hoppy. It's all about the yeast(s) being forward of a dry, attenuated, and refreshing crispy brew. If you overhop it, call it a "Belgian/French IPA" or something. 3711 is a fine yeast (and I use it often) but it is not as pungent/ripe/funky as other Saison yeasts, especially at lower temps. If you want 3711 to punch through, think hot. High 80's or a tad more (some go low to mid 90's). Let it do the Saison thing and don't coddle it. It should not effect the brett at all, and may even help that flavor develop a bit more, and faster.

Bottle conditioning would be easy and fast either by bottling early or with the addition of any form of sugars (take your pick, sucrose, maltose, dextrose, or whatever). 3711 will ferment distilled water and old gym shirts. If you want to avoid priming, then "when" to bottle will be the trick, i'm sure someone can come up with a time-to-bottle calculation based on the mega-attenuation of 3711.

 

[Calder]

I can't figure out what you are doing. Fermenting with Brett and then adding 3711. In that case the Brett will certainly provide flavor, and will act like a sacc yeast and quit working once the 'Primary' fermentation is done.

Or are you adding both together, or 3711 first, and Brett later?

 

[myndflyte]

I can't figure out what you are doing. Fermenting with Brett and then adding 3711. In that case the Brett will certainly provide flavor, and will act like a sacc yeast and quit working once the 'Primary' fermentation is done.

Or are you adding both together, or 3711 first, and Brett later?

Based on his mention of which turnaround time, I think they add both at the same time but package it too soon for the Brett to do anything.

 

[filthyastronaut]

Ugh. Commercial sales and "more hops". I'll give my opinion but it wont match best marketing practices (i.e. the current over-hopping fad) for a brew pub...

Saisons are NOT supposed to be hoppy. It's all about the yeast(s) being forward of a dry, attenuated, and refreshing crispy brew. If you overhop it, call it a "Belgian/French IPA" or something. 3711 is a fine yeast (and I use it often) but it is not as pungent/ripe/funky as other Saison yeasts, especially at lower temps. If you want 3711 to punch through, think hot. High 80's or a tad more (some go low to mid 90's). Let it do the Saison thing and don't coddle it. It should not effect the brett at all, and may even help that flavor develop a bit more, and faster.

Bottle conditioning would be easy and fast either by bottling early or with the addition of any form of sugars (take your pick, sucrose, maltose, dextrose, or whatever). 3711 will ferment distilled water and old gym shirts. If you want to avoid priming, then "when" to bottle will be the trick, i'm sure someone can come up with a time-to-bottle calculation based on the mega-attenuation of 3711.

Just to clarify, I'm not developing a recipe for the brewery, this is for at home with 2.5 gallon batches. Nothing to do with marketing.

I know what a Saison is, but I also don't care what it's supposed to be. The Saisons where I work are all pretty "traditional," low amounts of noble hops, pils, and adjuncts like wheat and rye. I love those types of Saisons. But I also like some hop character. I'm not talking a Belgian IPA, I'm talking a Saison with a half oz. of late Amarillo and a half oz. dry hop in 2.5 gallons. Something that will mesh well with the yeast, not overpower it. It's the Saison I want to make and drink all the time.

It's not really that I want to avoid priming, I'm wondering if I should skip it when trying to bottle a Brett Saison with a fast turnaround. Most of my beer hits FG by 2 weeks. I want to match that timescale but as I understand it Brett will typically attenuate down to 1.000 over a long period of time. So to bottle that quickly and still have Brett in the culture, I'm trying to figure out how to do it safely without risking bombs or just wasted, overcarbed beer.

Based on his mention of which turnaround time, I think they add both at the same time but package it too soon for the Brett to do anything.

This. The primary reason I want to use their blend is because I have a practically limitless free supply. Otherwise, I'd just buy myself some 3711. In fact, the character of 3711 is what I'm after the most, but if I could successfully bottle it safely with Brett and have the bottles change over time, that's an added bonus. And it's free.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Ah, ok. It's a bit clearer now.

I have heard of bottle conditioning with brett but its normally done post-fully-attenuated, then brett'ed and primed. With a combined strain, the point at which to bottle would scare me to guess at. Of course there is an optimal point, but how to quantify that point is your golden ticket.

I have also read somewhere that brett can chew on chains that sacc does not, and that can still be available in the solution. This may convolute the guesswork of some magical SG to bottle at and/or quantity of priming. My memory on that subject is fuzzy though. There must be a few gurus on the forum that can speak to it.

What I would do... Leave it in the fermenter (or some sort of secondary) for 5 to 8 weeks, then bottle and prime.

 

[myndflyte]

Never used Brett so I'm just going off things I've read but would you be better off adding Brett to a secondary and souring to taste before bottling?

 

[filthyastronaut]

Ah, ok. It's a bit clearer now.

I have heard of bottle conditioning with brett but its normally done post-fully-attenuated, then brett'ed and primed. With a combined strain, the point at which to bottle would scare me to guess at. Of course there is an optimal point, but how to quantify that point is your golden ticket.

I have also read somewhere that brett can chew on chains that sacc does not, and that can still be available in the solution. This may convolute the guesswork of some magical SG to bottle at. My memory on that subject is fuzzy though. There must be a few biological gurus on the forum that can speak to this.

This is pretty much what I'm trying to figure out. The dextrins and starches leftover should contribute to the remaining gravity points after a sacc fermentation, I think. So if I can assume Brett will take it down to 1.000, it should be as easy as waiting for the gravity to hit a certain number (like 1.004) and then bottling. But that's also assuming that Brett will actually take the gravity further than 3711. It's supposedly Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus, and it could be just as capable of fermenting those longer chains. I'm hoping somebody here might have done all the guesswork already.

Never used Brett so I'm just going off things I've read but would you be better off adding Brett to a secondary and souring to taste before bottling?

The problem with just letting the Brett run its course for several months is that I want to brew this saison like once a month and have it around all of the time. I could set up a pipeline to solve that but it would require more fermenters and space than I have.

 

[cactusgarrett]

What about making and maintaining a solera? That way you'll always have some older beer with a good, developed flavor on-hand to package, with a steady pipeline.

I've read that it only takes a drop of ~2 grav points to carb bottles, so bear that in mind. I haven't seen of calculators, but if you do a forced ferment with a bit of the starting wort, you can determine the best-case-scenario FG, and plan off that. However, since you're involving brett, that forced ferment test won't work, as brett (as a secondary fermenter) takes much longer to work. If you start around 1.004 and let the brett work for a while, it could be too carbonated. However, if you have at those bottles too early, it won't be carbonated enough.

 

[filthyastronaut]

What about making and maintaining a solera? That way you'll always have some older beer with a good, developed flavor on-hand to package, with a steady pipeline.

I've read that it only takes a drop of ~2 grav points to carb bottles, so bear that in mind. I haven't seen of calculators, but if you do a forced ferment with a bit of the starting wort, you can determine the best-case-scenario FG, and plan off that. However, since you're involving brett, that forced ferment test won't work, as brett (as a secondary fermenter) takes much longer to work. If you start around 1.004 and let the brett work for a while, it could be too carbonated. However, if you have at those bottles too early, it won't be carbonated enough.

I've never heard of that before but that's a really cool idea. Unfortunately I'd still have to buy myself yeast on the regular (and by that I mean every 5 batches).

 

[cactusgarrett]

Why would you need to buy yeast? Gonna spitball here:

With a solera, you pull from the larger batch and package, while brewing a smaller, fresh batch and adding it to the overall batch. Let's say you maintain a 8gal overall batch. Every time it drops low enough or it hits your acceptable time mark, you would pull out 2.5gal and package. Then immediately you brew 2.5gal more and add it to the remaining 5.5gal. The 5.5gal will ferment the new 2.5gal and in another month you'll be ready to package another 2.5gal and brew another 2.5gal more to add.

This would likely match what your brewery is doing (from post #1): a quick (1 month) turnaround, producing a beer with not much time allowance for the development of noticeable brett character.

 

[Calder]

3711 + Brett, shouldn't be a problem. 3711 is a monster; it probably doesn't leave anything for the Brett to chew on, and just leaves the Brett to work on the esters created by the 3711. I've had 3711 ferment down to 1.000 before now

 

[SoCal-Doug]

3711 might eat the brett after it runs out of sugars

 

[filthyastronaut]

Why would you need to buy yeast? Gonna spitball here:

With a solera, you pull from the larger batch and package, while brewing a smaller, fresh batch and adding it to the overall batch. Let's say you maintain a 8gal overall batch. Every time it drops low enough or it hits your acceptable time mark, you would pull out 2.5gal and package. Then immediately you brew 2.5gal more and add it to the remaining 5.5gal. The 5.5gal will ferment the new 2.5gal and in another month you'll be ready to package another 2.5gal and brew another 2.5gal more to add.

This would likely match what your brewery is doing (from post #1): a quick (1 month) turnaround, producing a beer with not much time allowance for the development of noticeable brett character.

Silly me, I misunderstood from just taking a cursory glance at what a solera is. This is a really intriguing idea, and I may start doing it when I get the motivation.

3711 + Brett, shouldn't be a problem. 3711 is a monster; it probably doesn't leave anything for the Brett to chew on, and just leaves the Brett to work on the esters created by the 3711. I've had 3711 ferment down to 1.000 before now

I'm leaning towards just trying it because of this, but interestingly, the FG of the last batch of our flagship saison is 1.010. I might bug our head brewer about this, because I have a feeling he just waits to hit that point and crashes the tank. We plan to start bottling this beer, so I have a feeling we're gonna run into problems on the customer side when they inevitably keep some unrefrigerated.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

You might only go to 1.004 or 1.006 if you mash warmer and/or depending on the ingredients. But being a Saison, i assume you are mashing at < 150. Never trust 3711. It's a hungry beast

 

[filthyastronaut]

So I'm gonna use a packet of Belle I already have for this, and nail down my recipe over several generations of that one packet. I'll introduce the 3711/Brett blend when I have my final recipe settled and hopefully remember to report back to my thread when I finally do.

This is what I'm gonna brew tomorrow:


HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Amarillo Saison

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: Saison
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 2.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 3.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.035
Efficiency: 80% (brew house)


STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.001
ABV (standard): 6.17%
IBU (tinseth): 21.88
SRM (morey): 5.05

FERMENTABLES:
3 lb - German - Vienna (75%)
1 lb - American - White Wheat (25%)

HOPS:
0.5 oz - Amarillo, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.6, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 18.64
1 oz - Amarillo, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.6, Use: Boil for 1 min, IBU: 3.24
0.5 oz - Amarillo, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.6, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Temp: 150 F

YEAST:
Danstar - Belle Saison Yeast
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (custom): 95%
Flocculation: Low
Optimum Temp: 63 - 75 F

 

[NTexBrewer]

Check and research how Orval is brewed. They bottle condition with Brett so the process is out there. I would use the strain of Brett that Orval uses. The key would be to use Belgian bottles to handle increased pressure and have a solid recipe so you know how much potential sugar is left.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Sounds tasty and quaffable. You just can't beat a good classic and simple Saison. I would recommend 148-149 on the mash temp. Dry that puppy out. Do a nice warm ferment and let the yeast compete with the hops. Mid to high 80's after a day or two. Keep us posted on the results.

 

[Beerswimmer]

Use plastic soda bottles. It's what I used when I first started using brett and being wary of bottle bombs. They hold something like 10 volumes. Just wash them and the cap like regular bottles. Reusable forever!

Hell, I still use 1-2 plastic bottles per batch to be able to tell if my beer is carbing up as expected. I also use the big ones when I make hefeweisse and fest beers because the big 2 liter bottles fill up a pair of Masskrugs perfectly!