I friend brought a keg of porter to a party at my house, and even after 6 of my kegs died nobody would drink his porter. I think it’s an extract batch that just tastes slightly off so I want to add brett and let it sit a few months. All I have for brett are 3 bottles of Rayon(not Saison) Vert, has anybody used the dregs from it?
Do you mean, Green Flash Rayon Vert? That is more Orval-ish, than a saison. At any rate, the bottling organisms are a combination of their house yeast and Brett Brux and should work for “contaminating” a beer. However, infecting a “bad” beer doesn’t necessarily make it a “good” beer. But, if it is a dumper anyways, it certainly won’t hurt anything. I say go for it!
Yeah, Rayon Vert, sorry about that. But I have 4.5 gallons of beer, he’ll want his empty keg soon and I hate to tell him nobody drank his beer. I figure maybe brett can eat the unfermentables built into his extract beer, but I may be wrong. All I’ll lose is a pint of Starsan solution and enough CO2 to purge the carboy.
Dump it if you can’t bear to tell him. If you add Brett and don’t tell him (which you can’t since you’d have to admit you were trying to fix it) he’ll probably never get the keg clean. Then every future beer he puts in that keg will eventually taste like Brett. Seriously bad homebrewing karma on your part there.
Edit: Besides, if he wants his keg back soon the Brett may not have enough time to work. And if he does realize he has a problem, he’ll think it is Brett contamination instead of the real problem. In short, this doesn’t help in many ways.
I think he was planning on transfering to a carboy for the addition of the brett. then giving the empty keg back.
Might be better to just let him know that there was something off about his beer, that way he can try to improve. Unless this is an anomaly for his beers.
Otherwise, if he thinks the keg got drained you’re likely to wind up with another 5 gallons that no one will drink at your next party.
Oh… well that would be OK.
still, it there is something to Joe Sr.'s (wow, internet handles make for some interesting puncuation) point about his friend not learning and improving.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the brett experiment. Just maybe tell your friend about what’s going on first.
My assumption is that rayot vert does have active brett in it. I could be wrong.
From Green flash website
I have had this also confirmed in an email from Chuck Silva, Green Flash’s head brewer. He also confirmed it is Brett. Brux. Hence, the similarity to Orval and the reason they changed their bottle design and thickness due to early batches becoming bottle bombs!
he knows his beers aren’t top flight and he’s cool with that, but I still don’t want to offend him. Or maybe since he is my company’s only local competitor he brought me this on purpose, but last year he sent his band’s guitarist to play for our party(and a keg of crappy beer).
Yesterday a new employee brought me some beer and in the box were a couple of New Belgium brett beers so now I have a variety to draw dregs from.
New Belgium pasteurizes their Brett. beers according to Lauren Salazar (at least this is the case with their recent Brett. beers). So no luck there. Your better off with Orval or Rayon Vert.
How do you figure? Brett is not a super yeast, it is easily killed on stainless steel by standard homebrew methods. If it was a wooden keg I might agree.
Agreed. I Brett my beers in the keg and have used them for non-Brett. beers without beers becoming contaminated afterwards. That being said, I do have access to an autoclave at work for the small parts of the keg. The stainless steel parts I just treat with iodophor and star san. But, I am overly anal like that.
I’ve never had sanitation issues with brett. I’ll fill a carboy with CO2 and rack the keg into it with a brett starter. Then I’ll let it sit until I think it’s ready.
I racked it Saturday afternoon, added Rayon Vert and NB Lips Of Faith dregs. It’s already forming a krausen so the problem with his beer was probably that it wasn’t finished fermenting. I wish I had done a hydrometer test.