Brett Trois IPA

On Sunday, April 14th, I brewed a 100% Brett Trois IPA.  This is my first time using Brett, so I went with Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois, WLP644 from White Labs, which I have read is pretty mild and not so funky.  I am not someone who likes sour beers, but I've been thinking about them lately and wondering what it is that I don't like, exactly.  Is it that they're sour and I don't like sourness?  Is it the funky character, some of which is derived from Brett?  I don't like Lambic or Geuze, for instance.  Never have.  I try a wild beer now and then and have been trying them for more than 20 years.  People always say, "oh, but you have to try this one from Rodenbach or Boon or Fantome".  I've tried beers from all of those places, and many, many more and have yet to encounter a wild beer that I enjoy.  I can sometimes enjoy an Orval, which has Brett, and sometimes not.  Might depend on the age and level of funk. 

Citra hops on the surface at the beginning of the boil.

That said, there's another surge of activity in America with regards to wild or wild inspired beers.  Some of these are 100% Brett beers.  Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to taste any.  So I figured what the hell?  I have nothing to lose other than a little of my time and effort.  I will be heading to Copenhagen in early May for the Copenhagen Beer Celebration and hope that they will have some interesting wild or wild inspired beers to try.

This yeast is reported to not be very funky unless it's aged, and even then, it's supposed to be a pretty mild funk.  Seems like a good place to start.  From reading a ton of info, it sounds like it can give a heavy fruity character including notes of tropical fruit, pineapple and sometimes a slight tart lemon character that can come from acetic acid production by the yeast when it's working in the presence of oxygen.  I went easy on the aeration for the beer that I brewed, only shaking the fermenter and not using pure O2 as I usually do.  When the starter was fermenting, it gave off an interesting rotting fruit character.  I see people describe it online as "overripe fruit", but that seems a bit mild to me.  Mine smelled like rotting fruit during fermentation.  I partially decanted that starter and drank some, though, and it had sadly lost all of that character.  It was pretty mild.  Some slight fruitiness with a soft lemony tartness to it.  It was pleasant and tasty but wasn't as packed with flavor or aroma as I was expecting or hoping for.

Now, 12 days later, I just pulled a sample.  It's 87.5% attenuated, at 1.008, down from 1.064.  It still tastes a bit green with a little sharpness to the grain character, but that's normal for this young of a beer.  It's mostly a very hoppy and bitter beer.  It tastes and smells great but I don't pick out any unusual yeast character.  Very nice, fruity and hoppy IPA.  The yeast works well with hops, but I can't really discern any special character from it.

fermentation at the 14 hour mark

The recipe is as follows:

Recipe: 175:  Brett Trois IPA
Style: IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 37.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 30.60 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 27.00 l 
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 14.6 EBC
Estimated IBU: 49.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 71.00 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes


 Ingredients:
------------
                                                                           
5.50 kg               Pale Malt  (8.0 EBC)                                 68.8 %       
1.50 kg               Wheat, Flaked (3.2 EBC)                          18.8 %       
0.50 kg               Crystal Malt - 50 (50.0 EBC)                      6.3 %        
0.50 kg               Oats, Flaked (2.0 EBC)                              6.3 %
  
37.00 g               Citra-2012-pellets [14.20 %] - First Wort Hop                   49.8 IBUs    
35.00 g               Chinook [11.80 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min                       
35.00 g               Citra-2012 [15.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 m                           
35.00 g               Galaxy [12.50 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min                       
 
1 pkg                  Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois (White Labs WLP644)           

20.00 g               Chinook [11.80 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days               
20.00 g               Citra-2012 [15.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days                 
20.00 g               Galaxy [12.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days                                


Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 8.00 kg
----------------------------
Name              Description                                           Temp.        Step Time    
Mash Step                                                                   122.0 F       15 min
Mash in                                                                        153.0 F       60 min       
Mash Step                                                                   168.0 F       15 min

Water was like so:

55% distilled water, 45% carbon filtered tap water.  Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Chloride and Magnesium Sulfate added to achieve these numbers:

Ca 131
Mg 19
Na 4
Chloride 98
Sulfate 140
Alkalinity 144
Residual Alkalinity 4
Chloride to Sulfate ratio of .70, bitter.

5 ml of lactic acid added to mash as well.

White Labs packages these Brett strains with a very low cell count as they're intended for use in a long secondary, where the Brett slowly eats at the wort.  If you want to use them for primary, you need to make a decently large starter.  I've read that the starter should have a cell count somewhere between a lager and an ale starter, so a pretty large cell count.  That said, I have also read that Brett creates more cells with a smaller starter than regular Saccharomyces yeasts do, so the amount of bang for your buck with starters is larger.  I took an 11 day lead time for mine.  A stir plate was used throughout.  The first step was around 450 ml for two days.  I then added around 600 ml of fresh wort.  After 3 days, I added another 1.15 liters or so, for a total of 2.2 liters.  I left that for 3 days then chilled it for 3 days with the intention of decanting the starter.  It was still milky with yeast in the bottom half, though, so I only decanted down to about 900 ml and pitched all of that.  For the starter, the yeast was pretty quiet on the first step.  Didn't see a lot of activity.  Second step was noticeably more active, and the third step was very active.  I used foam control on that third step, though, as this was about 2200 ml in a 2 liter flask and I didn't want it to foam over.

This was pitched on the cool side, around 64, but I turned on the heater and it was up to 70 within 6 hours and showing activity with some visible swirling.  About 14 hours later it was extremely active.  Fermentation was conducted between 70 and 73 or so, then warmed to 75 after activity dropped off and left to sit there until this 12 day mark I'm at now.

I intend to keg this beer and bring it to a homebrew gathering we will have on June 1st, assuming it doesn't suck.  At this point, it certainly doesn't suck.  So far so good.  For now, I will leave it alone.  I don't think I will secondary this, but I am waiting to dry hop it until it's a little closer to kegging time so I can get some fresh hop character in the beer when it's served.

Updates:

14-05-2013:  I pulled a sample of this last night after 5 days on dry hops to see if I need to use more.  I will not use more.  I actually liked the flavor of the beer better before dry hopping.  It had a rich fruitiness to it before that has been partially covered by the dry hops.  The dry hops have a little bit of harsh edge to them and a bit of grassiness that I don't entirely like.  That said, in my experience, dry hop character will soften up a bit once I pull the beer off those hops, so I'm hopeful that this will swing back into balance with some of the rich fruit character that this beer had before.

This will go into the keg this week and will have 2 weeks to sit in the keg, to carbonate and integrate flavors.  Hopefully that does the trick.  If not, the beer is a very nice beer already anyway.  I just want more of that fruit character that it had before, which I really love.

Also, interestingly enough, it has formed a very thin pellicle across the surface.  I have read that Brett does this in the presence of oxygen.  Perhaps adding the dry hops pushed a touch of oxygen into the beer.  Or, perhaps it's because I was using a foam stopper with aluminum foil instead of an airlock.  Or, just maybe it's a symptom of time and the beer has sat long enough now that the pellicle formed.  Whatever the case, it looks pretty cool.  I put on an airlock just in case, though.

02-06-2013:  We drank the keg of this beer yesterday at our Second Hombrew Competition in Zagreb.  When I tapped it a huge line formed and I was pouring the beer nonstop until it was gone, limiting people to a half cup each so that everyone could try it.  It went quick, I guess in maybe 20 minutes or something.  People loved it.  It went over very well.

This beer came out very nice in the long run.  The dry hops softened a little and the beer had a lovely balance to it.  This one is worth repeating.