I really like the aroma of bretanomyces bruxellensis when it’s used as a subtle undertone. Goose Island’s saison Matilda is a pretty good example and at the 2013 Door County Beer Fest, Door County Brewing Company had brett in their porter that went pretty quickly. I hope they bring it back this year. I also find the descriptions of brett brux pretty ridiculous: Horse blanket, cow pasture, dairy farm, compost pile, “ …urine soaked hay (in a good way).” Really?! Urine?! How can that be a good thing?

I didn’t fully comprehend this until I brewed another Bishop Rye Saison and pitched 300 ml of slurry from the first batch. The brett completely dominated the smells emanating from the Better Bottle. It started as a pleasantly sweet leather aroma and by the third day, a compost smell took over. I’m not sure this second batch will be used for anything more than blending with other funky

and sour beers at very small ratios, but I’ll let it ride out and see where it comes out.

I really like how the Re:Fined Rye Whiskey Barrel stout turned out and I wonder how it would taste with a hint of brett. I stepped up a drop of WLP 650 and I’ll used that in the stout. The process was pretty simple.

I saved the tube of WLP 650 that had less than a ml of brett brux left. I made a 1 L starter for the Wyeast 1318 London Ale III that I will be pitching in the stout and saved 50 ml of 1.025 (6.25 plato) wort to add to the tube. I thought that the worst that could happen would be a loss of 50 ml of wort. I’ve lost more during a boil over. It took about 36 hours, but the brett took off without too much trouble. By the fourth day the brett

settled out to the bottom of the tube.

The next set-up I added 100 ml of 1.05 SG (6.35 plato) wort to the tube which filled it to the base of the cap. within 12 hours, fermentation took off and at 36 hours about 10 ml of nice white yeast floculated and settled to the bottom of the tube.

After a full week of fermenting in a better bottle at 65F, I racked the stout into the Re:Find barrel. The barrel had two different stouts and a healthy dose of a potassium metabisultphite/citric acid solution in it previously, so I plan on aging it in the barrel for at least a month. I’m not ready for this barrel to take on bugs, so I’ll wait to pitch the brett until after I take it out of the barrel.

Stats

Batch Size (Gal): 5.5

Total Grain (Lbs): 15.50

Anticipated OG: 1.071

Anticipated SRM: 39

Anticipated IBU: 62 (Rager)

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.2%

Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain Bill

12 lbs Maris Otter

1.25 lbs Flaked oats

12 oz Chocolate

8 oz Roasted barley

4 oz Black Barley

8 oz Caramel 120

Hops

0.75 oz Warrior @ 60 min

0.5 Columbus @15 min

0.5 EKG @ flameout

Yeast

Wyeast 1318 London Ale III one L starter

WLP 650 stepped up from less than a ml of yeast.

Mash Profile

Single infusion at 158F for 60 minutes

Two batch sparges at 168F

Fermentation Profile

Pitched yeast at 65F and held for 7 days then put at ambient in the oak barrel.

Notes

4/6/14 – Brewed by myself. my Efficiency was much higher than anticipated and got an OG of 1.081. I boiled water and added 1.o gallons to bring the OG to 1.065. Pitched 1.0 L of wyeast 1318 at 65F into 6 gallons of wort.

4/13/14 – Racked to the re:Find barrel. A solution of potassium metabisultphite/citric acid was in the barrel previously. I rinsed the barrel with near boiling water before racking.

5/5/14 – Bottled 2.5 gallons. Racked 2 gallons and pitched the stepped-up Brett Brux.

7/18/14 – The second batch of the Rye saison with brett mentioned in this post that had the 300 ml of yeast slurry turned out very well. The organic acids combined nicely with the alcohols to produce some tasty esters. I blended the 2nd batch with 2012 Lambic and bottled enough for seven cases.

8/2/14 – Racked the 2 gallons on 2 lbs of raspberries from the Oshkosh Farmers Market.