Inspired by Orval & Bringing Belgian Brett into my Brewery

[leedsbrew]

All looking great steve! When will it be ready?

[lancsSteve]

Ready - now there's a good question when is a beer 'ready'? When it's drinkable, at its best or just before it starts to go bad?

It needs to move to cellar this weekend to settle out, then bottle in another week, wait for carbonation and re-fermentation... Maybe try the first one 2 months after brewday, some from around 6 months should be god. Want to keep some back to blend with a younger version of the same beer made the same way next year...

2 yr old orval's are very special - so if it's any good and infected the right way I think it will be 'ready' in 2013 and past it's best by about 2016

[lancsSteve]

Well it's been 3 weeks dry hopped in secondary beer sphere so was time to get bottling.

Cleaned up the bottling bucket (used as FV) and added dregs of Orval bottles - great excuse for opening a bottle


Last few EKGs and seeds floating but most had sunk by now:


Racking to bottling bucket:


Decided to take a gravity reading and see what had happened since the 1.007 at the end of primary - brett definitely working!


AMAZING smell and taste - really nice to get to taste it ide-by-side with real Orval, smell bang on brett character and a really nice taste too even when flat and young, most excited!

Adding in the priming sugars - 85g sugar and 85g DME for 18 litres to reach 3.2 vols CO2


And then bottling - with a wee bit of Orval fetishisation in evidence


Now gone up to a warm-enough room for a week or two to carbonate then back to cellar for a couple more weeks before I try my first one. Top evening's bottling, great taste already and looking forward to leaving this to mature and the flavours to mix and mingle.

[lancsSteve]

Now tried two of these and LOVE them - really really love them. THey have all the brett character of an aged Orval (sadly lacking in younger examples).

It's controversial and may seem egomaniacal but I prefer these copies to the one I tried (only a month old) from the crate I brought back from Belgium of Orval. Never thought that would be possible! The real ones will become sublime I have no doubt but will have to stay in the cellar for a GOOD 5 months before I even try another one. More challenging I think will be to see how my ones mature - challenging as they really are rather fine right now and VERY moreish.

Will be taking a few along to the THBF 'Spring THing' next weekend.

[Gricey]

Wow, that's great news. Well done.

[bod]

interesting read steve!

Ive had a brett beer fermenting for a few weeks now, transfered to secondary last week with wlp650, brett B, and so far its showing no signs of real life, but a veeeeeeerry slow rate of bubbles from the airlock, maybe 1 every few hours! it was really low in gravity before transfering, 1.007, so i just hope there is enough left for the brett to chew on!

i'm sure it'll be fine though, but i really cant see me saving many more than a year after bottling....

[leedsbrew]

I can testify to how good this beer was! outstanding! I tried it a couple of weeks after coming back from Belgium. I had a couple of bottles of orval over there that were obviously quite young as they did not have the ages bret character that Steve's clone has!

Well done that man! You have convinced me to have a play with bret very soon!

[Spud395]

Very interesting read lads and I want to try one
I'm guessing I need to try an Orval before I try anything like this but this thread makes me want to do this

[bod]

well my concerns of the brett not having much to digest turned out not to be an issue, as its now down to 1.001 and still dropping! although this does mean its a little stronger than i had intended.... oh well.

have you managed to hold on to some of yours steve or have you drank them all yet?

[lancsSteve]

Kept a LOT of them, putting two in for national homebrew comp... Still got something like 16 odd left and want to keep ageing them - they're improving a lot!

Used the yeast to make a wit as well - it's really nice swirled up and makes for a cracking complex wit...

[TC2642]

Adding in the priming sugars - 85g sugar and 85g DME for 18 litres to reach 3.2 vols CO2

The only problem I had with adding sugar is that I am getting a lot of gushers now. When I next use the Brett culture I have left over I'm not bothering priming, I don't think it needs it.

[bod]

do any of the priming calculators take into consideration that the brett will chomp through alot more sugar than normal yeast would do? that would account for the gushers i guess. mine has drooped to 1.000 now and has held at that point, but any addition of sugar is only going to be devoured over time by the brett.

[TheMumbler]

I would guess that the priming calculators assume the yeast has consumed near enough all the available sugar. II suspect they aren't designed with slow workers like brett in mind, don't know for sure though.

[barney]

Good Luck in the competition, it sounds a winner.

[lancsSteve]

2nd place in Belgian and French (combined wit, saison, blonde, golden strong and speciality) category out of 24 entries in that class at bjcp rules national.al comp in bristol =