[Joe Sr.]

I'll do that.  I have some T-58 and some Sorachi Ace so I'll likely combine those in a saison first, though.

[bboy9000]

When I went to Boulevard a few months ago and a brewer said they bottle conditioned with the same yeast used for fermentation.  I asked a general question, I wasn't specifically asking about Tank 7 and haven't tried harvesting yeast from it. The brewer did say that when harvesting such a small amount of yeast from the bottle, the flavor profile can easily change by the time you get it built up for homebrewing.

[denny]

When I went to Boulevard a few months ago and a brewer said they bottle conditioned with the same yeast used for fermentation.

Interesting.  I'll have to see if I can dig up the presentation I saw and double check what I recall.

[Mark G]

So this morning I kegged my saison that I fermented with harvested yeast from Saison Brett. It finished at 1.012 and has dropped clear. There is definitely a peppery spiciness to it, but is missing the depth of yeast flavors I typically get in my saison. With this exact same grain bill, using 3711 or 3724 gets me in the low single digits for FG. There is no Brett character at all yet. My taste perception may change once it's carbonated, so I'll wait a bit before making any conclusions. At this point though, I'd have to guess that they either filter before reyeasting for bottle conditioning, or primary ferment with a non-saison strain (T-58?) . My plan is to bottle a good chunk of this batch and see how the Brett character develops over time.

[nateo]

So this morning I kegged my saison that I fermented with harvested yeast from Saison Brett. It finished at 1.012 and has dropped clear.

That's where I'd expect T-58 to end up. I wouldn't be shocked if they were reyeasting, and maybe pasteurizing before bottling? I'm not sure they'd want to get Brett into their bottling line.

[denny]

Here's the presentation on bottle conditioning from Jennifer Helber at Boulevard...looks like maybe they use both T-58 and S-33.

http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2010/Bottle_Conditioning_Like_a_Pro-Jennifer_Helber.pdf

[nateo]

Thanks for the link Denny.

"Usually, beers that are lighter in color (less than 12 EBC) are dosed with 100,000 cells/mL. Beers that are darker (more than 35 EBC) or have ethanol levels above 7% v/v require 500,000 cells/mL"

So if my math is right, 500,000 yeasties*20,000ml = 10,000,000,000 = 10b cells? Dry yeast contains about 20b cells per gram, so for a big beer I'd want 0.5g of yeast? I've been using 10g per batch, but after reading the powerpoints I think I'll scale that back.

I was going by the pitching rate Lallemand recommends for Champagne refermentation.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that since you blow out the yeast in the methode champenoise, autolysis isn't a big deal, but might be if you leave the yeast in the bottle.

[bboy9000]

Here's the presentation on bottle conditioning from Jennifer Helber at Boulevard...looks like maybe they use both T-58 and S-33.

http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2010/Bottle_Conditioning_Like_a_Pro-Jennifer_Helber.pdf

Thanks Denny, I learned a few things from the slides.  I guess if Boulevard uses S-33 and T-58 for most of their brews the information I was given on the tour would be accurate.

[BPR]

If you're interested in details on Saison Brett, this is an excellent article to read. Lot's of items to consider that I don't think have been touched on in this thread. Considering that Saison Brett is essentially the same wort as Tank 7 that's been "modified a tiny bit", I'm going to say that the yeast strain is not 3711 or any type of DuPont strain. I'd say WLP550 would be good guess (perhaps using upper reaches of ferm. temps with it). Probably a 90min. mash - and you can check out Blvds website for details on the grain bill for Tank 7 and hops used (magnum, simcoe, amarillo). I'll also comment that I've brewed with WLP550 for a stout and fermented at very very low temperatures for an extended period of time and it was a very clean profile (no belgian esters at all). So the comments about using a particular strain for a bunch of different styles would be dead on in my mind.

http://kcbeerblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/boulevard-saison-brett-interview.html

"Certainly the yeast strain we use for our Belgian beers plays a huge part. We've really taken the time to learn what it's going to do under certain conditions and in different wort compositions so we're able to coax a wide range of flavors out of this one strain. We use the same yeast for Tank 7, Long Strange Tripel, the Sixth Glass, Harvest Dance, and Dark Truth. "

and

"We aren't as daring as some breweries that play with brett in their stainless fermenters, instead we introduce it at bottling."

and

"We fell in love with the way the beer tasted from the fermenter it was cellaring in before packaging, FV 7, and Tank 7 was born. Since then, we've modified the recipe just a tiny bit when we brew Saison-Brett.  All the hopping remains the same, but we mash just a bit longer when we're brewing Saison-Brett. We really want the beer to dry out quite a bit before we add the brett. Since brett continues to chew away at sugars, we want to make sure we have a beer with a very low final gravity before we introduce the brett."

[rblack90]

I was on the smokestack tour last week. They centrifuge most of their beer except lagers which they are filtering.

[erockrph]

"We fell in love with the way the beer tasted from the fermenter it was cellaring in before packaging, FV 7, and Tank 7 was born. Since then, we've modified the recipe just a tiny bit when we brew Saison-Brett.  All the hopping remains the same, but we mash just a bit longer when we're brewing Saison-Brett. We really want the beer to dry out quite a bit before we add the brett. Since brett continues to chew away at sugars, we want to make sure we have a beer with a very low final gravity before we introduce the brett."

This is an interesting quote. I think the old school of thought was always "you have to leave as much behind for Brett to chew on as possible". So it seemed like you would hear a lot of recommendations to mash high to leave a lot of dextrins as food for Brett.

This quote seems to line up with what I've been hearing more and more over the past couple of years - that Brett isn't producing it's typical flavor contributions through its metabolism of sugar and dextrins, but rather from converting other byproducts such as phenolics and esters produced by Saccharomyces in primary. If Saison Brett is produced like this, then that certainly cements it in my mind that Brett doesn't need dextrins to work as a secondary yeast.