Brettanomyces Project Round Up

Over a year ago I started the brettanomyces project in my small brewing space. It cost a bit more than some things because I had to use liquid cultures. The project had a simple enough aim: "to test 3 of the commercially available brett strains in my Belgian single recipe to see if what the fermentation profiles and characteristics were."

I am happy to report success was achieved on that front. I produced three reasonable beers with three 'wild' strains of yeast.You can read the review of Lambicus, Bruxellensis, and Claussenii by following the links. The world of brettanomyces is a vast and open frontier.

Highlights:
The brettanomyces bruxellensis was the best of the three. It had a crazy flavor of dry spicy hay. The other two brettanomyces didn't wow me in primary fermentation. I made a dark saison with Lambicus that was awesome when I retried it.

Advice:
Try it for yourself, but be sure to keep your strains going to avoid buying fresh samples once you have your baseline. I am in this boat if I want to keep trying this and I don't really want to buy fresh samples so I might try culturing bottle dregs. I feel as though I learned some valuable things about these strains. If you do try it please let me know.

What's Next: 
What's next? nothing is imminent  I have a Brett Saison fermenting and I'll probably keep that culture going at least another generation. This was a fun test but I want to try out other things as I prepare myself to go after winning a competition in 2014. I think that brett as a primary fermentation agent could work as it has for Chad Yackobson but my focus for the next test, when I get around to it, will be brettanomyces as a secondary fermentation agent, or as blended strains.