Monday, October 8, 2012

Brett Bottling Weekend



This past Sunday I got the urge to clean out some carboys(some sour, some not) and bottle them.  I've been using a medical syringe for adding bottling yeast and I love having the control it offers.   I've been adding 2ML of yeast slurry into each bottle.  I think this is the proper amount of yeast for most applications. 

Yesterday I got out my Pioneer Series: Citra, a Brett-C Single Hop IPA.  The 1st three gallon batch was brewed with Citra Hops.  This beer was brewed in April 2012.

I also got out my 21, Sorachi Ace'd Saison batch #3.  This is a split batch that netted three gallons.  It was split with a Rosemary Saison that I am still undecided on. 

After cleaning the necessary bottling equipment, I grabbed 2 clean/sanitized pyrex bowls filling one of them with Brett-B cultured from a Sierra Nevada/Russian River Brux strain.  The other was filled with Champagne yeast.  The Champagne yeast was from a dry packet pitched into a starter of 300ml of 1.030 wort 24 hours prior.  Each bowl received a syringe. This allowed me to bottle each of the respected beers with either Champagne or Brett-B yeast. 



The Pioneer Series: Citra was bottled all with Champagne Yeast.  The 21, Sorachi Ace'd Saison was split 50/50 with Brett-B and Champagne additions.  Since the Saison finished at 1.001 carbing pills were also added to help both the Champagne and Brett yeasts.  

Normally, I will treat Brett like a traditional Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast during bottling.   Giving off one volume of Co2 per gravity point.  This is why I do not like to bottle any wild beer over 1.008. The possibility of bottle bombs becomes to great.  When this situation has come up, I've kegged the beer and bottled with my Blichmann Beer Gun and then kept the bottles at cellar temperatures.

The current batch of bottles will be checked at around 3 weeks for the appropriate carbonation levels, if they become excessive, they will be placed in the cellar, which is kept at 49 degrees year round.


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