Lawrence Brewers Guild

Anyone keep Brett on slants?

I have 8 of my 25 or so yeasts moved over to agar slants. The 8 were cultured on agar/wort from a petri dish and then the colonies were moved to slants of agar/wort. The slants are stored in a 39 degree refrigerator.

It takes about 8-10 days to grow up to pitching strength from a dab from a slant into a 10ml starter. The starters are moved up 10 fold. Each build is allowed to grow for 2 days.

Not having anywhere to go with them, I have some petri dish yeast that has been setting on my desk for almost a month with no infection. The agar/wort is drying out but the yeast still looks in good shape.

I have read that with the acidic production of a Brett colony that the agar/wort media needs to be buffered with a 2 percent chalk formula. Also wonder about 5.2 buffering powder.

So that would be 2 grams of chalk, 4 grams of agar agar and 94ml of 1.040 SG wort with a yeast nutrient for a Brett media.

Anyone doing this?

Looking back, I have cultures of yeast that 1.5 years old and still going strong. Now to play with the wild Brett strains.

I don't slant anything but it's looking like I should start. I'd love to have the flexibility it allows. Brett is such an interesting critter and it's resilience is remarkable. I've never had any in long term storage because any time I need brett I go buy a bottle of Orval and culture the dregs. I know it isn't a pure brett strain but I feel like it is more in the spirit of those original belgian beers anyway. Thanks for the great info!