I’m currently in the third week of a Brett-only fermentation. This week I upped the temp to 70 F to get the fermentation to finish. I need to cold crash Friday night and keg Saturday morning to serve Saturday afternoon. I can probably get way with kegging it before the Brett is completely done but I’d like it to be done. What temp can I safely ferment at with Wyeast’s Brett lambicus (Wy 5526)?
You’re fine to get it up around 80, probably even up to 90, although if you didn’t pitch enough yeast up front the temperature increase probably won’t get you to FG.
Yeah, I think rushing an all brett fermentation could shoot you in the foot. Especially if the yeast are not done fermenting and you are left with too high of an FG. On the other hand, I have noticed that brett seems to clean up after itself as it goes along almost reducing the time necessary to allow for conditioning like most sacch. strains benefit from.
As stated above, my only true concern with speeding it up would be the overly high FG leaving a sweet finish for that style. I would bump the temps to the mid 70’s and swirl the fermenter a couple times a day to keep them yeasties workin.
What are the original and current gravity of the beer? I think you will pretty disappointed with an incomplete fermentation, and good luck getting the Brett to flocculate overnight. Those little guys take forever to fall to the bottom and clear the beer.
Lot’s of good advice as usual. I’ll report back.
I recently learned from a local pro brewery’s yeast wrangler that brett works better (at least in all-brett fermentations) if the wort is a little more acidic than usual. I don’t remember offhand the pH he recommended, but I added 4 drops of a 33% lactic acid solution at his recommendation.
Gravity is 1.006 so the beer is pretty dry. The beer does not need any more fermentation to cleanup any off-flavors. The beer is still fermenting at 75F, but I’ve turned off the heat so it will probably cool down to 67 F over the next 24 hours. I’ll transfer 3 gallons to another carboy and 3.5 gallons to the keg tomorrow evening and cool the keg on Friday morning.
Sounds good. That beer is most definitely ready to roll. A 1.006 FG for a 100% brett ferment is pretty low, at least in my experience (obviously grist, mash temp based). Get that sucker packaged up and drink away!