Bottle Conditioning with Brett Bruxellensis

[uncle_bad_touches]

I'm planning on brewing an Orval clone using WLP510 in primary and bottling with brett bruxellensis. In order to avoid cross-contamination I was planning on adding the brett to the individual bottles with a pipette prior to capping and allowing them to bottle condition. My concern is that by doing this I'll be creating bottle bombs, especially with the additional priming sugar. Would it be wiser to secondary with the brett for a couple months prior to bottling? Has anyone had experience doing this?

[brewinhard]

I have never bottle conditioned with brett for that very reason, although I have secondaried and primaried many beers with it. If your beer has attenuated to 1008 or so then you should be okay to add the priming sugar and brett for bottling. If it still remains high, then you should pitch the brett into secondary and let it age for a few months before bottling (once again, 1008 or so is a good indicator of when its ready).

One word of advice on secondaring (sp ?) with brett. Run your primary ferment with your yeast choice, but rack the beer into a carboy just as the primary ferment starts to slow (maybe 4-6 days). Add your brett and plop an airlock on. This will allow for minimal oxidation to occur during the aging period as the remainder of your fermentation will push the oxygen out of the carboy due to scrubbing. If you don't do this, your wonderful beer will be oxidized over the several month period it takes for the brett to even do anything to your beer. Be patient with brett, and keep it in the low 60's for nice flavors/aromas in the secondary. Good luck, and give it time = the more, the better!