I was lucky enough to take part in a small group that obtained a Bourbon Barrel for the use of aging beer. For our first batch, we brewed an Abbey Dubbel and I contributed 10 gallons to fill the 55 Gallon Barrel. The beer aged in the barrel for about 4 months until we pulled the Dubbel and replaced it with a Russian Imperial Stout. This left me with 2 5gallon corny kegs full of Abbey Dubbel.
Since I had 2 kegs of the same beer, I wanted to do something different in one of them. I decided to blend two types of Brettanomyces. I chose one package each of White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis and Wyeast Brettanomyces Lambicus. I’ve used Brett B before and really like the taste. I decided to play around with a blend. The hope is to get some of the flavors I loved of the Brett B and add to them the more potent flavors and aromas Brett Lambicus.
To do this, I didn’t want to have to take the beer that was already in a corny keg and transfer it again into a carboy just to referment with the Brettanomyces. So I threw the two wild yeasts into the corny keg. In about a week, once the Brettanomyces grows a little, I will add some D2 Dark Candi Syrup to build some more complexities to the flavor. Since I am not trying to prime the beer with the sugar, I needed a way to vent any of the CO2 that gets built up in the keg. To do this, I built a small homebrew gadget to fit a 3-piece airlock to the gas side of a corny keg. This is how I built it.