ECY-02 - Flemish Sour Ale

Anybody try this out yet? Description:

"A unique blend of Saccharomyces, Brett, lacto & Pedio perfect for flemish reds and sour browns. Dry, sour, leathery and notes of cherry stone. Designed for 5 gallon pitch, but may be added at any stage of fermentation."


I got my hands on some and plan to brew a Flemish Sour Ale using a recipe similar to that found in Brewing Classic Styles. For reference, I love Rodenbach Grand Cru.

This will be my first sour. Some questions:

1. Is it better to do as Jamil suggests, and ferment it out with an neutral sacch. strain, then add the ECY02? Obviously from the description, it seems that I could pitch directly into a ~ 1.053 wort. I want to do whatever it takes to accentuate the sour character.

2. Primary for several months, then transfer to a secondary and add oak? I know the level of oxygn reaching the beer plays a large role. I plan to use a dedicated buck for primary, but not so sure how to proceed here. (How long? Secondary or no? Autoylsis concerns?)

Any other experience, tips, or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Did you ever brew and use this culture? I'm brewing a Flemish Red today and wondered what your experience was. I have ECY02 and rosalare at my disposal.

I brewed with it in September, I used a washed slurry pitch that was a 1st gen. I used it as my primary pitching strain, and it seemed to do well. There's now clearly patches of brett and bacterial colonies on the surface of the wort. It smells fantastic, and while my nose tells me it's ready to go, I'm trying to wait at least one more month to package it.

My recipe and writeup.

Brewed with it in August, still haven't bottled it yet. Got a nice pellicle, and it began to sour considerably around the 5 month mark. It is also developing those classic FR cherry/stone fruit characteristics now. I would recommend it.

I also have it in a Oud Bruin in a carboy so I can't be much help. Smells good!!

I was just checking how it worked out thus far. I don't think it was even available as a culture until spring or summer last year. So I didn't expect many people to have it bottled and drinking yet. I've been very very happy with every beer I brewed and fermented with ECY strains. So I'm sure this will be no different.

smokinghole said:

Did you ever brew and use this culture? I'm brewing a Flemish Red today and wondered what your experience was. I have ECY02 and rosalare at my disposal.

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I'm in the same boat. I've got my grain bills together last night for Flanders red & brown, I have 2 packs of roeselare and 3 containers of ECY02 Flemish ale. I'm in a quandary on which yeasts to use. Would love more feedback on the ECY02.

I went with the ECY02 and might do another batch in the future with Roeselare.

I might have to get some more buckets and just do all 4 for comparison.

I wish I could get some ECY, but seems like they are always out.

Well I bottled up a batch of flanders sour with ECY02. I think it came out great. Now I just need to get it brewed up again. I'll mash a little higher this next time. I'm very very happy with how the beer turned out.

Nice dude! I've done two batches of Flanders Red with 02, time to do a brown. How did your bottle conditioning turn out? My buddy can never get his sours to carb...

poley said:

Nice dude! I've done two batches of Flanders Red with 02, time to do a brown. How did your bottle conditioning turn out? My buddy can never get his sours to carb...

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This is a question I have been wondering about. I have brewed my first sour, an Oud Bruin with grapes that has been about 3 months in the fermenter. I was figuring to add some oak and leave it for at least 3 more months, taste and then bottle when ready (whatever that means). However, after all of that time, I am wondering if I need to add more yeast to carb or whether whatever remaining living bugs I have in there will do the job. What is the general consensus on this? It was fermented with WLP530 and the dregs of some Brett/Lacto/Pedio sours.

I did taste my sour about a month ago and it tasted and looked really nice. However, the finish has a distinct chemical taste that I would characterize as phenolic or acetone. Should I expect this to go away? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Brewitt said:

However, after all of that time, I am wondering if I need to add more yeast to carb or whether whatever remaining living bugs I have in there will do the job. What is the general consensus on this? It was fermented with WLP530 and the dregs of some Brett/Lacto/Pedio sours.

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I can tell you what I know has been tried, and what worked better than just adding priming sugar. My same buddy made a champagne yeast starter, and pitched that into his bottling bucket. That worked better than just priming sugar, but the issue is that the environment is *so* hostile (low pH, no O2/nutrients for the yeast) that it's hard to get it to carbonate with just priming sugar. I'd love to hear how anyone who has attained success accomplished it. As for me -- I have a sour keg. I force carbonate, and bottle off the keg. Not as good, but a sure fire method of getting bubbles

Brewitt said:

However, the finish has a distinct chemical taste that I would characterize as phenolic or acetone. Should I expect this to go away? Any thoughts or suggestions?

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I've heard that it will go away in time, though I've never experienced it first-hand.

It's not just the inhospitable environment. Over time CO2 seeps out of solution. If you have a beer sitting for a few weeks it's no big deal but after a year you lose quite a bit. Priming sugar calculators don't take your aging time into consideration so you need to compensate with additional sugar to reach your desired carbonation level. Fresh wine/champagne yeast will get in there and eat up the sugars before the slower moving pedio and brett can get ahold of it.

From looking into the bottle the conditioning seems to be proceeding OK. I added a decent helping of a ECY09 culture that fermented with a lacto strain and I figure since it took the acidity of the lacto it can take the flanders as well. So I put that in there and will check one next weekend to see how the carb is coming along. I am weary of using champagne yeasts ever since I heard about the kill factor some of them have. Rather than research what ones have and do not have the kill factor I just tend to go with ale yeasts. WLP001 is fairly acid tolerant and I can get buckets of that at work.