Funky Ye Olde Ayle Blend

[burkecw]

hullo there all

So I'm working on an old ale recipe, and felt it would be nice to feature a bit of the wild character in there in a controled manner. Basically, fermenting the batch from a yeast cake of WLP 002, then splitting off 4 gallons to a carboy and 1 gallon to a jug where I'd pitch some Brett C. Let both ago for about 6 months, then taste, pasteurize the brett fraction, then blend back to taste during bottling.

anyone have any experience or tips with a method like this. I'm only looking for a subtle note of something... peculiar... in there complementing the caramel, fruity and malt driven flavors of the ale. I'd like to steer clear of some of the more "belgian" flavored old ales that some people have commented on in the forums.

thanks

 

[dcp27]

i've never blended back, but i think this is going to be very subtle. brett C is the mildest of the bretts and cutting it 4:1 may block it out entirely. what notes are you looking for from the brett?

 

[ghack]

I split a batch of porter, half Bret C, the rest without. I ended up just blending them back together and letting the whole thing go. The Bret C added nice flavors with a touch of funk and smoothed the whole beer out.