Brett IPA

Faire Attention! A gathering was sighted in this pot, more than 5 microorganisms inoculated in a small closed bucket, high risk of contagion.

It is true, you read it, we’ll explain later, all of this will make sense at the end of the this article. We promise.

We’ve been running around like a teenager in high school, with a crush on Scott Janish, always behind him listening to what he has to say, we even reading his diary. As if to say, it’s first book, “The New IPA”. Looking at the beer literature published in recent years, this book will undoubtedly be one of the most important to be written in recent years. Research on hops continues, however, not always at the same speed of the market needs. Techniques taken for granted have been challenged in the meantime, the world of hops is more complex than we realize when we drink an IPA at our favorite bar.

Fortunately for us, there are people who are not indifferent to these developments and even like to share their research. Thus was born this book by Scott Janish, which combines analysis with various investigations and dissertations where hops are the main focus, on a set of practical results available to any brewer.

Esta imagem tem um texto alternativo em branco, o nome da imagem é DSC_5764.jpg

As good students we do our homework and see if we have learned the lesson well, for today we have a Multi-yeast Brett Spelt NE IPA Triple Dry-hopped. We will try to summarize what we learned with words and, in the end, with a beer, in which we hope to capture the best that hops have to offer us. Shall we do this?

The genesis of this beer comes from a long time ago, in a simple way initially, a Brett IPA. Brett has flavor-preserving and hop capabilities that are superior to other yeasts, although no one knows why. Later came the Spelt, you know, to give that rustic touch to the beer.

Then the lords of Yeast Bay went hiking in the middle of the Californian hills and among flowers picked there, in the middle of those flowers they found a yeast, one that occurs naturally on the sugary nectar that plants have. With a weak attenuation, not capable of fully fermenting a beer, but favoring the retention of aromas. They called it nectar, with a strange name, impossible to pronounce correctly at the first attempt. They could have called it whatever… It doesn’t matter, because the beer geek in us was on jumping to try this.

And so it begins the first part of the strange love-affair with Glycosides, that exists in this beer. A glycoside is a compound chemically linked to a sugar molecule. Many plants, including hops, store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. In hops, aromatic compounds, such as terpenes, are attached to sugars as glycosides in the green matter of hops, which yeasts like this NIY (nectar inhabitant yeast) can use to release flavor and aroma compounds. Terpene glycosides also play a role in hop biotransformation.

But moving on, our simple Brett approach went from 1 single strain to a blend of 5 yeasts, because experimenting is something we like to do and well… why not? Full card deck play.

And then there was a sachet of yeast of white wine, stored in the refrigerator, a long time ago, waiting for the right opportunity. Lalvin 71B is known in the world of wine, for having a great capacity to produce glycoside-releasing enzymes. We are against taking prisoners and decided that we had to release them. Thanks again Scott, for the tip.

Esta imagem tem um texto alternativo em branco, o nome da imagem é DSC_5763.jpg

But this is beer and it takes malt to extract sugar, in this case 4 malts. A base of Pale malt, Spelt and Rye for a rustic touch to the IPA farmhouse style, if that is a thing, and Oats for creaminess. For the mash party program, we take this to the comfort of 70º C. It seems out of context, but remember this is a Brett IPA and brett is an animal that needs sustenance, that is, long chains of sugars resulting from the high temperature mash. In the pH department, we pointed down to a range between 5.2-5.3 more suitable for this type of beer, but we had too much of a aim and hit a mark too low, making it necessary to correct with sodium bicarbonate.

Mashing and sparge completed, we proceed to the boil, like an after-party of perfumers playing with hops and … coriander (don’t tell anyone). These coriander seeds, from our local Indian market, contain a large percentage of linalool and gerianol which, during fermentation, are transformed into beta citranelol. Going “all-in” for that final aroma in the beer.

Esta imagem tem um texto alternativo em branco, o nome da imagem é DSC5766.jpg

And to draw on this aroma, it’s really not worth it to be burning hops, so the vast majority of hops will enter the final phase, after the boil off, in a Whirlpool of 15 minutes with the temperature already at 82º C.

Esta imagem tem um texto alternativo em branco, o nome da imagem é DSC5768.jpg

For the fermentation temperature we need to think twice, it is necessary to please Greeks and Trojans and do the will to the 7 organisms that are going to ferment this beer. For this we need to find a temperature range where everyone is happy. You know, like setting the air conditioning on a room full of people. We opted for the warm temperature of 25º C for everyone to be comfortable.

As we think this was all very dominated by yeasts and after all this is an IPA, time to bet big on bio-transformation, with the first dry-hop to be done at the same time that we transferred the beer to the fermenter and pitched the yeasts.

At the end of 5 days of fermentation, most of the work is done and activity slows down, but we gave Brett more time to do his job, leaving the beer in the fermenter two weeks before continuing the technique “claimed to be invented by the Portuguese macro beer Sagres”, called dry-hopping. 2nd dry-hop for 48 hours plus a day to cold crash to 2º C and continue the next experiment in the cold hop area, with the new trend being to do it at very low temperatures, with our 3rd dry-hop happening in this 2º C range, for 24 hours.

And because it is time to do an aroma full-house on the table, for yet another aroma kick, we go back to the perfumer register and also add a little Citra hop essential oil, at packing.

Smells good around here. Cya next time!


Brett IPA


Batch: 20L
Total cereal: 6,70 Kg.
Original Gravity: 1.063
IBU: 45
Efficiency: 65%
Boil time: 60 minutes

Cereal

77,6% – 5.20 Kg. Pale Ale
9% – 0.60 Kg. Spelt
9% – 0.60 kg. Rye
4,5% – 0.30 kg. Flaked Oats

Mash

Sacharification – 60 min. @ 70ºC
Mashout – 15 min. @ 76ºC

Hops

6 gr. Warrior (pellet, 15.60% AA) @ 60 min.
20 gr. Denali (pellet, 12.80% AA) @ 5 min.
20 gr. El Dorado (pellet, 15% AA) @ 5 min.
80 gr. Denali (pellet, 12.80% AA) @ Whirlpool 15 min.
30 gr. El Dorado (pellet, 15% AA) @ Whirlpool 15 min.

Dry-Hop
1st DH – Inoculation
2nd DH – After the primary, at 14º C. Wait 48 H and cold crash to 2º C
3rd DH – When it hits 2º C. Wait 24 H and package

Citra essential oil
1 ml. at kegging

Extras

Yeast nutrients @ 5 min.

Yeast

The Yeast Bay Amalgamation II – WLP4641
The Yeast Bay Metschnikowia Reukaufii
Lallemand Brewing Lalvin 71B

Water

Ca: 102
Mg: 3
Na: 36
Cl: 130
SO4: 85
SO4 to Cl Ratio: 0,7

One thought on “Brett IPA

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.