i’m making a starter from my 100% brett apricot pale ale. when i received the vial, i noticed that there wasn’t near as much yeast visibally as, say, the vial of american ale iv yeast i have in there (significantly less). i made a 1200 ml starter and what i’m seeing after 14 hours is the same as what i was seeing after i pitched it.
this was this morning…
no signs of life. is this normal?
I can’t see the bottom, but I assume you have a layer there and the beer looks somewhat cloudy. Have you been stirring or shaking the starter? I would give them at least 7 days to finish. Brett is a little slower than Saccharomyces.
it’s on a stir starter, so it’s staying moving, but it doesn’t look any different than after i pitched.
Brett primary fermentation have a longer lag time than Sachharomyces. They can also take much longer to complete fermentation.
It should be fine, as someone previously mentioned, Brett. has a longer lag time. According to Chad Yakobson (Crooked Stave), don’t chill and decant your Brett. starter. Unlike regular brewer’s yeast, Brett.'s viability goes down when stored cool. Just pitch it when it’s ready.
I’ve read you should start your B. bruxellensis like two weeks before you brew when doing a 100% Brettanomyces ferment.
i’m not brewing until june 24th, so that gives me 11 days.
should i leave the it on the stir starter (while i’m out of town for a week) or just leave it out, but set aside?
You would probablly be just fine setting it aside. But, don’t think it will hurt things either weay. If it were me I would just set it aside.
FYI, somewhere I found some info on the White Labs’ brett vials. Apparently they have 50 million cells per mL and they’re 35 mL, so they’re 1.75 billion cells per vial. This is less than 2% of a normal yeast vial. Can someone else confirm this?
I pitched two into a 1 L starter and it took about 5-6 days to complete, so with only 1 vial, I’ll bet it will take yours another day or two…and you still won’t have enough yeast for a normal pitch rate. If the Mr Malty and Wyeast calculators are right, then 1 vial in 1.2 L will only give about 29B cells when done, which would be a very low pitch rate for a normal beer.
I’ve done two all brett beers and both times I used WL. I pitched two vials into a 0.6 to 1 L starter, then pitched that into another 1 L starter, in an effort to get to a normal ale pitch rate. A lower pitch rate might be OK with brett, but I didn’t want to wait forever for it to complete. Both of these beers reached 85% attenuation and FG in about 1 month.
oh man… i planned on making another more wort on thursday, when i get back in town, adding it to the existing to get more yeast, but that will only have until sunday to work it’s magic… what to do, what to do…
Tiny cell count and sluggish starter are working against you. I generally give at least two weeks and start with a tiny starter (.5L) ramping up every 5-7 days. If you work with what you have, some acid and a good oxygenation will help it take off. Try 1-2% acidulated malt and 60 seconds O2. Took my strong golden to 1.000 from 1.090 in 7 days and a DIPA to 1.006 from 1.086 in just under that. The DIPA was also a lighter pitch/rushed.
thanks.
i made it back into town today. i did notice a krausen forming on the beer before i went out of town friday. i put it in the pantry, off the stir starter and let it sit until today. yeast had fallen out it seemed and were in the bottom. i decanted the top layer and added more wort to it and back on the starter it is.
i’m cautiously optimistic.
Just a guess but I’m thinking with brett a slow start may not be such a bad thing. It may give you more brett character.
The Zymurgy article from Chad Yakobsen is a GREAT primer for 100% brett-fermented beers.
If you want to REALLY geek out - his Master’s Dissertation is posted here:
GREAT read if you’re really interested in wild beers. I had to read it over a few times (and still do), but I’ve learned a lot from that man.
i read the article and will check out the dissertation. thanks for the link.
wow, that is some dense sciency stuff there. I will have to take that slow. I have read einsteins special and general theories of relativity about 10 times and am just starting to be able to think clearly about what that means. I suspect this will take longer :
