What will it taste like?

[scrimple101]

I'm pretty certain that i have a Brettanmyces infection in my Stout. I've looked at some pics online and they look very similar. I think it came from the oak chips i threw into the secondary. The chips had been dried, soaked in water and then toasted in the oven until they were scorched. I would have thought that would have got rid of any nasties. Well not so. My questions are: what effect/taste will this have on the beer? How long can i leave it in the secondary plastic fermenter? Should i bottle straight away before it has a noticible effect on the beer?

 

[Not For Horses]

I'm fairly new to Brett but have been doing as much reading and tasting as I can.
Brett can accentuate the dark flavours in a stout. This may not be hugely desirable if you had a large amount of black malts but may be quite good with chocolate malt.
It will continue to change with time so you could bottle it now then drink it progressively or wait a while then bottle it when you think the flavour is somewhere near to what you want.

 

[manticle]

Brett can be delicious and it can be horrible. It can move through different stages too.
I've found it hard to totally sanitise oak chips too - hard to monitor the internal temp.
If you are going to age it, I recommend filling a glass demijohn, topping up with boiled water and sealing off once your fermentation is definitely finished. Forget about it for 6 -12 months, use a clean syringe or wine thief to sample.
Had an amazing bretty, peddy imperial stout from neonmeate recently but nm reckoned it wasn't much chop early on.

That said, early, fresh brett beers can be great too.
Remember that there are different strains with their own characteristics.

 

[scrimple101]

How long before i can bottle? It's in a plastic fermentor at the moment so am keen to get it out but don't want to buy a glass carboy/ demijohn.

 

[manticle]

When the gravity is low and stable. No hard and fast answers but brett is a determined beast that sometimes works quickly and sometimes slowly. I have kept funked beers in plastic for close to 8 months but would pefer glass for peace of mind for ageing.

 

[OneEye]

There are different strains of Brett, but most, in time, will finish at around 1.006-1.003. You can stop/slow this by dropping the temp of the wort to ~2C.

Like manticle said, Brett can produce some unique and delicious beers. I've just started to experiment with it and some of my 100% Brett IPA's have been my best beers yet!

If you want to read more about it I highly recommend given this a read http://www.brettanomycesproject.com