Possible Brett: Trouble Shooting Saga

[Ignoble Grape]

Okay, so I've been working on my problem child 2020 Merlot.

Bulk aging was going beautifully - clearing up, delicious ripe red cherry - super yummy.
Then came the beginning of summer. The wine turned cloudy and had an off-flavour, almost like an earthy mold. Not TCA, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Very strange.

Filtered with a .5 micron and then a .1 micron (lowest I can go) and doused with SO2. Moved it out of my stainless steel into glass carboys. The filterning helpled, but the off-aroma was still there. Opted for activated charcoal, added 0.5 g per 5 gallons (.025g/L). Left if for a week.

It's ruby red and clear again, and I can taste red cherry, but it's not very strong. I finally get the band-aid taste of brett, after all of that, it's pretty clear. I didn't know that brett could cause turbidity? Maybe something else was causing the wine to turn cloudy and the brett was just happily munching away on it.

Thought I'd share. Now I'm not sure what to do with 15 gallons of problematic Merlot. I might invite some friends over to try and see if they like it or not - otherwise it's getting tossed - BUT, I'm happy that I was able to fix it to the point of clarifying and fining out some of the off-aromas.

 

[cmason1957]

I have heard it said that if you get a case of Brett, the best thing to do is destroy all your equipment, burn down your house, move 50 miles away and try again. But that seems very drastic to me.

 

[Ignoble Grape]

I have heard it said that if you get a case of Brett, the best thing to do is destroy all your equipment, burn down your house, move 50 miles away and try again. But that seems very drastic to me.

Right??? I had trouble finishing off ML last year. Everything's in the garage and the temperatures were just too chilly. This left the wine unprotected after primary. This year everything gets co-fermented with heavy SO2 right after.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I only have glass and steel, so much easier to clean and sanitize. There's no way I could keep barrels clean.

 

[CDrew]

Sorry to hear this. Any of your other wine affected?

 

[Ignoble Grape]

Sorry to hear this. Any of your other wine affected?

Thanks - I had one other carboy that's a little suspect. I've just done the final rackings with SO2 additions ahead of bottling. Will filter down to 1 micron and keep my fingers crossed that nothing goes off in bottle.

 

[wood1954]

I have a bucket Merlot fermenting now, after AF I’m going to add a product called no more Brett, its chitosan and enzymes it’s supposed to prevent Brett then add 25 ppm so2 hopefully not kill the MLB.

 

[cmason1957]

I have a bucket Merlot fermenting now, after AF I’m going to add a product called no more Brett, its chitosan and enzymes it’s supposed to prevent Brett then add 25 ppm so2 hopefully not kill the MLB.

Why are you adding SO2 while you have an ongoing mlf? If might not kill the bacteria, but I would certainly think it will stun them

 

[wood1954]

After losing 24+ gallons of wine I’m a bit gun shy of Brett getting a toe hold, plus the Merlot is pretty low on acid so my Avante yeast will chew up about 30% of the malic and the mlb will eat a little more. Basically I’m afraid of Brett even tho this years vintage from my vineyard probably had the yeast on it, not my equipment. I’m not sure I’m being logical or not.