I have a lot of mead, 225-250 gallons ready to bottle, aged 1 -3 years, and about 30 gallons ready to rack to tertiary and age in the cellar. I’m probably going to do some blending, I have quite a few varieties, mostly melomels made with our own fruit: cranberry, peach, blueberry, mixed berry (raspberry, elderberry, blackberry, blueberry), cyser, wild grape pyment, dandelion, maple tej, and more.I’m definitely in the mood to experiment. I’m thinking of pitching some brett into a finished batch of mead. what do you think will happen? i’m thinking it would ferment to very dry but wonder if it will make the same flavor compounds in mead as it would in beer. I imagine it will be quite different but maybe basically the same, a bit of sour and a bit of funk. I also wonder if brett will fair well in finished mead, does it need a starter, yeast nutrient? I’m totally out of the box here, no clue and not attached to an outcome.
one idea I have is pitching it and some peaches I have in the freezer with some peach cranberry mead and saving some of the same flavor to blend with it.
My guess - somewhere between nothing and not much due to the lack of sugars in finished mead for Brett to feed on. I also remember reading that funky Brett flavors are formed by Brett modifying phenols, generally absent in mead. But who knows?
I share your view on the funky flavors: just not sure if the precursors to those flavors exist but I do think there will be sugars to eat up as the wine yeast certainly does leave some behind.
The Bretta doesn’t need sugars but it does need other fermentation byproducts that may or may not be present in the mead. totally worth a try in my opinion. Bretta makes a pretty noticable impression in wine and melomel isn’t going to be that different in chemical profile to a grape wine I would imagine.
If you do go the brett route, I would suggest to avoid overly funky brett strains (i.e. Brett B, and WL Brett L) which can be overly farmyard, and sweaty.
Maybe try WY Brett L (cherry pie thing) and WL Brett trois (the new one, not 644 which is now just a wild yeast, but still would play well in terms of tropical fruit flavors for your mead). Brett Claussenni is also a great choice to go with and is fairly mild and subtle with pineapple notes an fruitiness.
Its only a guess until I try but I’m thinking that barnyard, cherry pie, and such flavors would be absent or subdued do to lack of precursors but maybe other unique flavors will develop.
Jonathan, have you had wine with brett? What was it like?
horse blanket, barnyard, leather, tobacco. those descriptors were being used in the wine world long before the current funky beer thing. I think you’ll get those flavors. the yeast are going to make esters and aldehydes in whatever substrate you give them.