East Coast Yeasts

I picked up a vial of the ECY02 (Flemish Ale) a while back and am pretty excited to give it a try.

My plan is to brew the AHS Flanders Brown kit with Wyeast Abbey II in primary, rack it to a carboy after high krausen and pitch the ECY (which is a blend of sacc, brett, lacto, and pedio) to finish out fermentation / age.

Has anyone had experience (good or bad) with these guys -- there sure is a lot of buzz around these bugs!

Does this seem like a pretty sound method? This is also my first sour beer. I have some leftover oak cubes from another beer I brewed that I might throw in down the road as well -- just don't want too much going on.

No need for another yeast in primary with the ECY02. (unless you want a very mildly sour beer). I have done 3 batches with this yeast and it is amazing on it's own. It does really need a warmer ferment though ( 68-75ish)

Also, what is "a while back"? 2 months? 6 months? I know that a start is usually a no-no with a mixed culture, but I have noticed a very very long lag time with ECY stuff if they are over a few months old ( my own damn fault for keeping yeast that long, but life gets in the way). I think even Al recommended a starter for older vials.

galttfwo said:

No need for another yeast in primary with the ECY02. (unless you want a very mildly sour beer). I have done 3 batches with this yeast and it is amazing on it's own. It does really need a warmer ferment though ( 68-75ish)

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Really great to hear -- Thanks for that input. I will skip the Wyeast and go all ECY. To be honest, I am looking forward to seeing what sort of character it brings on its own.

galttfwo said:

my own damn fault for keeping yeast that long, but life gets in the way

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I hear ya! got this about 2-3 months ago, and it has been languishing in my fridge until I had some equipment free up (wasn't planning on buying the ECY, but was able to nab this one vial when it went up for sale on Princeton Homebrew's site). So now I can (finally) use it and I'm really pretty excited for it. I'm glad to hear that you've had good experience with older vials.

Would you just make a normal size starter? (I am anticipating an OG of around 1.068 or so)

Cheers!

for 1068 I would do a small starter,, nothing crazy. No need to really build up the yeast, just get them moving. That is what I have done for a few of mine and all have turned out great.

Been using ECY almost exclusively for about the last 2 years. Only dont use them for a ESB (wyeast 1968) and a Pale Ale ( 1056) that I do.

As others have said, skip the Wyeast and just pitch the ECY02 the blend was built to be pitched as the primary yeast. Ive used a handful of Al's yeast over the last 10 months and have gotten fantastic results you will be happy.

I'll send the warmer ferment temps, I had a beer with ECY01 lag for 48 hours until I put it on a heating pad and it kicked off in a few hours.

If I were you I would make a little 500ml starter just to wake the sacch strain up a bit to reduce downtime, let it go for 24 hrs and you'll get the result you want. In that short amount of time I wouldnt worry about throwing off the balance of the blend since sacch will work quicker and build up/wake up and the bugs wont really get going just yet.

Thanks for the great advice, everybody -- I'll let you know how it turns out!