Inspired by Orval & Bringing Belgian Brett into my Brewery

[lancsSteve]

The slighlty gaudier and sillier version:

[bosium]

I like the Orval'lian (Orville-ian) labels. I've actually got a 2 year old Orval hidden away somewhere, if I can find it I may just drink it this weekend. Who knows what it'll taste like by now? I've only ever had one and it was quite fresh - very dry and hoppy and I don't really remember much funk so tbh I don't really know what the Brett adds to the beer..

[Spud395]

Great thread, I'm only getting into Belgian beers and am really enjoying them.
Must get my hands on BLAM, ordered it before but there was a mix up some where along the way

I'm a bit scared of the whole brett thing, but I guess it has to be tried, in the interest of research!

[lancsSteve]

I like the Orval'lian (Orville-ian) labels.
Cheers!

[quote="bosium"I've actually got a 2 year old Orval hidden away somewhere, if I can find it I may just drink it this weekend. Who knows what it'll taste like by now? I've only ever had one and it was quite fresh - very dry and hoppy and I don't really remember much funk so tbh I don't really know what the Brett adds to the beer..

Enjoy - as I say they're VERY different in my experience - just glad they're not popular enough to sell at the Sun thus giving me a ready supply of aged examples (at a price) and able to bring back bottle and dregs too - with a few odd looks form the barmaids. Though fear I may be about to finish their supply...

Great thread, I'm only getting into Belgian beers and am really enjoying them.
Must get my hands on BLAM

Thanks and DO, awesome book, - Radical Brewing and Farmhouse Ales alo highly recommended.

I'm a bit scared of the whole brett thing, but I guess it has to be tried, in the interest of research!

TBH I'm slightly terrified - but am marking everything as I go to keep it separate and as my weird/wild set of fermentation kit. Will need to get new bottling stick etc. A near-future brew will be a Leipziger Gose using the Berlinner Weisse mixed culture which has not only a bit of Brett but Lactobacillus as well - DEF needs keeping separate after that! (May split that one and have half with salt and coriander a la Gose and the other half racked some of that onto fruit to create tart/sour fruit wheat beer...). Not sure if bottles need separating but hoping that

I'm hoping to keep them clean and then could use the FV for portions of beers where some wildness would add to it rather than ruin them e.g. planned Saisons which could benefit from a little wildness for comparison. I've only contemplated this route as I do have a spare set of FV kit and will be ordering more oxfam buckets if I need other fermenters.

That said as saccharomyces means - literally - sugar fungus but brettanomyces means BRITISH (ale) fungus it seems appropriate to start playing with it as a Brit! (Rather than leaving it for the Belgians and Americans)

[Barley Water]

If you plan on going to the "Dark Side" you might also want to check out "Wild Brews" by Jeff Sparrow. That book has a very nice explanaton of how to handle the bugs and gets into detail concerning what is going on during a Lambic fermentation. Everything is much more complicated than just brewing so called normal ales and of course the lead times are measured in years rather than days. I am seriously thinking about setting up a Lambic solera with two cornie kegs or possibly those fancy "Better Bottles" depending on what I can find out about the oxygen permiability of those things (just one of the complications involved with these types of beers). The Oud Bruin solera I have going now seems to be working out well. By the way, I think the cutting edge of this hobby is in the area of sour beers. At least over here I think the "Hop Bombs", while still popular, are being replaced by the sour beers as far as chic exotic beers go. I would also say that brewing this kind of stuff will also help your regular brewing assuming of course you don't infect your entire brewery with the bugs.

[mysterio]

Steve kindly sent me a bottle of the wyeast Brett/Trappist blend, going to do a Belgian blonde or strong golden with it in a month or so

BW, those Better Bottles are great. So easy to lift and carry. As far as I know they don't let any oxygen through. I also discovered they don't absorb odours either. I left some beer/yeast dregs in them for close to a year while the festered away growing all kinds of weird and wonderful coloured moulds. After a quick soak in oxyclean they were fine, no bad smells trapped like you get in some plastics.

[bosium]

+1 to the better bottles. I have two now, and I try not to use anything else. The little racking adaptor is so incredible useful for leaving the trub undisturbed while racking, whilst getting every last drop of beer out. I use CO2 to push the beer out via the tap and into my kegs.

They are fearsomely expensive, however :-/

[lancsSteve]

If you plan on going to the "Dark Side" you might also want to check out "Wild Brews" by Jeff Sparrow.

Got it, just finsihed - fascinating!

or possibly those fancy "Better Bottles" depending on what I can find out about the oxygen permiability of those things (just one of the complications involved with these types of beers).

+1 to the better bottles...They are fearsomely expensive, however :-/

Hmm I'm less than impressed from the one I had... (I dropped the glass carboy as got slippery and shattered - thankfully empty so got a beta bottle as lifetime fermenter until I lent it to The mumbler who imparted this essential fact: NEVER pour boiling or near boiling water in a better bottle as you would with say a normal plastic FV - they will go through the worlds most rapid ageing porcess in front of your eyes and become very small and wrinkly...

By the way, I think the cutting edge of this hobby is in the area of sour beers. At least over here I think the "Hop Bombs", while still popular, are being replaced by the sour beers as far as chic exotic beers go.

Seems so in the states - getting me interested here esp lactic tartness in fruit beers...

I would also say that brewing this kind of stuff will also help your regular brewing assuming of course you don't infect your entire brewery with the bugs.

Yup - keeping my kit WELL labelled and separate!

[lancsSteve]

Anyone got any ideas on the cause of a 'gluey' smell in an FV? Was going to use a redundant second hand beer sphere as secondary (rather than my OAP beta bottle ) which doesn't keep pressure or have any other good use so perfect as 'sour secondary' - but the nbbeer that was in it for a long time - a coopers kit - left a gluey smell.

Been cleaned with Oxy and soaked in bleach and smell now gone and was going to do VWP > campden tablet (soodium met) > rinse > star san before use but wanted to check any ideas or notes of 'noooooooo' caution!

[lancsSteve]

A little later than i'd normally do but had to wait to get an appropriate vessel for secondary - in this case a beer sphere from The Mumbler (who got it free) which doesn't hold pressure so has little major use and is therefore rather perfect for getting the 'hazard - wild yeasts' warning tape stuck on it and used for this beer for dry hopping.

Here's the beer - the head had collapsed in and you can see how flocculent and clumpy the yeast was by the couple of clumps left floating:



Dry hops in the beer sphere.


I had a real dilemma as I'd just received some Celeia Styrian Goldings from the Malt Miller and got into a debate with myself about dry hopping this beer: should I follow the older tradition of Orval and finish the opened pack of EKGs as used for most of the bittering - and flavour/aroma addition, or use styrian goldings having used some super-styrian Aurora as bittering hops and following contemporary Orval practice?

Michael Jackson writes about this in "Great Beers of Belgium" that:

The dry hopping is a very important influence on the character of Orval, especially on its aroma. The variety of hops has changed over the years. Rock is especially fond of Styrian Goldings "That flavour! I like it! That freshness, dry freshness." I remember his predecessor, ROger Schoojans, rhapsodising about Kent Goldings "That indefinable special taste, that finishing touch"

In the end I decided to use the 40g of East Kent Goldings and hope it gives some indefinable special taste and also make it something more 'inspired by the original' rather than seeking to copy the current version. It also had the benefit of finishing only-opened-2-weeks-and-stored-in-freezer-in-sealed-bag hops rather than opening a new pack of hops and having two of them open...

I didn't add more yeast at this stage as I figured there's enough left in suspension and the Brett went in at the start in the wyeast blend. Orval ferment primary with saccaromyces and then add wild yeasts at this stage. There's plenty of yeast in suspension I'm sure and I'll be adding Orval bottle dregs and maybe a little of the wyeast split into the bottling bucket at bottling stage rather than now in secondary.

Racking in progress:


I've now cleaned up the primary FV with oxy soak overnight, then baby-bottle-sterilising lefotver milton for a wee bit solution, then fill with campden tablet (sodium met) to neutralise the bleach and finally a spray with star san before leaving it to dran and dry for storage. Even though I'm going to be using it for bottling this brew next I recon hitting with the nukes like this isn't bad practice at all between uses! After bottling it'll be stored until use for fermenting some beers with the berlinner weisse blend (sacc + lactobacillus + brett mix) - may sacrifice an oxfam bucket for that as well.

[steve_flack]

I think perhaps the fear of bring Brett and other bugs into the brewery is over-egged a bit TBH. We live in a world swarming with bugs and wild yeasts. Grain is full of lactobacillus etc and we chuck that into mash tuns in rooms we later rack our chilled wort in. Good sanitisation practises will take care of any bugs you bring in just as they take care of the other bugs in your brewery.

[lancsSteve]

I think perhaps the fear of bring Brett and other bugs into the brewery is over-egged a bit TBH. We live in a world swarming with bugs and wild yeasts. Grain is full of lactobacillus etc and we chuck that into mash tuns in rooms we later rack our chilled wort in. Good sanitisation practises will take care of any bugs you bring in just as they take care of the other bugs in your brewery.

Thanks Steve - I essentially have this kit as 'spare' and try to use as many good practices for sanitation as I can - the above regime is pretty much clean, rinse, sanitise but with a few extras that are to hand lobbed in for good measure. I figure that for things like the FV and taps etc that can be well cleaned and sanitised they'll be fine - for bits like a bottling stick and tubing that is harder to guarantee it's all properly cleaned and they;re cheap I may as well markup and separate - but as these are first steps into wildness I figure I can't be too careful! I'll bear it in mind if I need to press this back into service for more 'normal' beers but as most of my plans are Belgian a little lacto and brett are fairly welcome!

[TC2642]

I won't turn down a taste - it looks really interesting! I wonder how much brett character will be there straight off the bat, and how much will need time to come through.. Definitely an interesting experiment.

I've done this with my 9X Imperial Porter that I made in October, it's had the Brett culture from an Orval bottle in it for around five months, I get a lot of Brett smell and a whitish film over the top of it when I open the fermenter but not much when I've had a sample. I'm going to leave it another month before bottling and then wait a further six months before going for it at Xmas. The Brett is definitely working since the gravity has dropped from 1036 to 1028.

[mysterio]

Just following on from what Steve was saying. It's probably not a good idea to have grain/grain dust around while you're racking. This is coming from someone who still sucks on a siphon to start it so take that with a pinch of salt.

[lancsSteve]

The sack of malt is now in another storage bucket - more as rodent prevention (we've had mice again recently ).

I'll be leaving this another week in the warm with the dry hops in beer sphere then taking it down to the cellar for a final week which hopefully help the current yeast settle out a little as it's pretty cool down there (8c) at the moment. Then racking from beer sphere into bottling bucket where I'll add a little tiny bit of the reserved wyeast mixed culture and some Orval dregs (good excuse to crack another bottle ) and the priming sugar then bottling - all in the incredibly clean and sterile environment of the cellar...

Who knows - maybe it will get a little house culture added! That said I don't store grain down there as don't want to attract mice.