I’ve been playing around with the idea of fermenting either an all brett or mixed ferment at very cold temps. sort of a farmhouse lager. anybody tried something like this? intentionally or non?
My plan is to spit three gallons into 1 gallon fermenters and pitch straight brett into each and keep them at varying temps.
Right now that would mean room temp 60-70ish, what ever temp I set my ferm fridge at, maybe 50, and the serving fridge which is standard fridge temp so 38ish
Since brett doesn’t survive as well at fridge temps for storage as it does at room temperature I wouldn’t think you’ll get very far trying to ferment at those temperatures. You might get fermentation at those temperatures but I suspect you’ll wait an extremely long time or fermentation will stall early.
Chad Yakobson say: In 100% brett fermentations, his brett strains don’t like to ferment/finish below 68F or so. I’m sure it depends on the strain, but he gave this as a blanket statement, assuming across all strains he uses.
In a mixed fermentation with Sacch and brett, brett will continue to work during conditioning, even at low temps, albeit much more slowly. I can’t speak to the differences in flavor profile, but I assume there are some.
Lacto and pedio pretty much go dormant, permanently as far as I can tell, after cold conditioning. I’ve tried mixed fermentation with slurry from kegs that were previously in the kegorator - not much funk, hardly any acidity.
That’s interesting. That’s actually kind of what I was hopeing for, that it would remain at least somewhat active during conditioning. I am always amazed at the different behaviours brett seems to display between 100% brett and mixed ferments.
Well, it’s on the list of things to try. Maybe I’ll tweak the experiment and useit in a mixed ferment.
I did a brett beer that was done with sach initially, then dumped 1 white labs tube of brett “B” into the keg at about 65F, and in about 1 month it was very Orval Like. I then immediately put it in the fridge at 42F. That beer lasted about 2 months and it never changed while in the fridge.I know that doesn’t completely answer the question, but gives you an idea of what my experience was 