Ecy20

How many beers can you pitch a single vial of ECY20 into? If I brew 5 gallons of each; porter, brown and saison can I split it in thirds?

Well, I just ordered ECY20 to brew a lambic.... hopefully this is a good yeast for a fruity lambic (for my wife)?

This will be my first sour batch. I plan to step this bottle up along with some lambic dregs in a bottle and splitting my wort into 2 or three secondaries.

wbuffness said:

How many beers can you pitch a single vial of ECY20 into? If I brew 5 gallons of each; porter, brown and saison can I split it in thirds?

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you probably could, but i suspect it will take longer for the beers to sour. you would be pitching fewer bugs per gallon, so the critters will be slower to reproduce and to create acids & associated flavors.

i'd split the ecy20 between 2 batches, and get something else (roeselare, lambic blend, etc) for the third one.

adding some dregs from sours will also help.

Technically, if you pitch ecy20, wouldn't you be actually brewing an oude bruin, oude bruin, and lambic?

kaips1 said:

Technically, if you pitch ecy20, wouldn't you be actually brewing an oude bruin, oude bruin, and lambic?

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No.

I will let you know in a few months... I figure it can't hurt a beer that will age 18 months before being consumed...

sweetcell said:

you would be pitching fewer bugs per gallon, so the critters will be slower to reproduce and to create acids & associated flavors.

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I wonder if this is true. I would guess that pediococcus produces a lot of the lactic acid in this blend. In Wild Brews Jeff Sparrow says that it grows slowly if at all, and is found in very low concentrations even in lambics. But then again, perhaps this is a reason to pitch as much as possible from the start.

I know that smokinghole has mentioned deliberately underpitching sour ales with 1/4 of a vial of ecy to 10-13 gallons (here). I split my vial between about 6 3-gallon batches, but only as a primary fermenter for 2 of those.

I certainly do underpitch, but it depends on the beer. For something more cleanly sour like a Flanders I will do about a proper pitch. For a sour Saison or lambic I will underpitch the crap out of it.

smokinghole said:

I certainly do underpitch, but it depends on the beer. For something more cleanly sour like a Flanders I will do about a proper pitch. For a sour Saison or lambic I will underpitch the crap out of it.

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Is there a noticeable difference in the level of sourness? I've done both with my vial of ECY20, I'm curious to see how the batches vary.

smokinghole said:

I certainly do underpitch, but it depends on the beer. For something more cleanly sour like a Flanders I will do about a proper pitch. For a sour Saison or lambic I will underpitch the crap out of it.

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underpitch sacch, or bugs? sorry, we've discussed both recently...

and as metic asks, what has been your experience? does it affect sourness, or speed of souring? or something else?

If a "Saison" or what turns out to be a hoppy sour, and lambic, I will pitch only the souring blend, and pitch very little. If a Flanders I will pitch yeast for a standardish ale type fermentation and add the souring blend at the same time in a reasonable pitch. Brewing sours isn't as much about population its about sugar profile if you ask me. The brett and bacteria cannot really compete at standard temps against sacch. so you need to provide a wort sugar profile that saves sugars for the souring and long haul of maturation.

So basically in essence a much higher mash or adjuncts that will be long term food for the bugs?

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I thought that is why you use unmalted wheat and or flaked wheat. No? I am new at sours too, but that was my understanding.

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Unmalted/flaked wheat will still convert in a mash it just depends on how you mash it.....its less about whats in the mash and more about how you treat the mash. Of course it matters whats in there but an unmalted grain is just there to provide complex starches instead of cleaved sugar molecules that are formed through a standard mash with the amylase enzymes. So if you don't give the unmalted grain a chance to fully convert because you are using a turbid mash, there will be long term carbohydrate for the yeast and bacteria to hydrolyse sugar molecules off the starch complexes.

Back to the original question...
I started with a slant of ECY 20, added 1L of 1.040 wort, stir plate for 3 days, then pitched into a 50 gallon barrel. I would say that is "significant underpitching". So far (6 months in) it is tasting great. Not as strong as my authentic lambic, but its still good.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/50-gallon-lambic-mash-v2-new-barrel-holder-pizza-bread-418234/

Ive found the same to be true with ecy20. Ive made beers with just lambic bottle yeasts and I like the flavor more than ecy20. Plus the lambic culture made the beer come out drier and more complex. You use pitch rates like me. *high five*

1. If I pitch ECY20 into a brown ale with no other yeast, what will it be? Saison? Sour brown?
2. If I use 1/2 the bottle of ECY20 without a starter and have a OG of 1.050 brown, will it ferment correctly?
3. Will it follow the same rules as regular yeast and be around a 5% beer?

1. i's say a sour brown. depending on the recipe, it could be a oud bruin (flanders brown). according to the BJCP, saisons aren't brown, use saison yeast (the sacch in ECY20 is either mostly or entirely non-saison) and generally aren't sour.
2. half a vial in 5 gallons? i have no experience with this, but seems pretty damn low. i believe that a full bottle per 5 gals is the recommended pitch rate, so you're looking to go half as much.
3. with the brett and other bugs in there, i'd expect it to go pretty low so you'll likely end up with something closer to 6%.

1. I'd say it's a sour brown of sorts. If its amber you can stretch to say it's a saison in my book. Saisons are classified as they are now post pure culture techniques. They were surely aged long periods and sour just like lambics were. I can't imagine when they were very traditionally made by a farmer or a group of farmers that cleanliness was the best. BJCP is stupid to classify a beer with such a rich history into such a small box essentially being something that needs to emulate Dupont.

2. The pitch rate depends on what you're looking for. I've pitched miniscule amounts of yeast for beers and pitched proper amounts with souring cultures depending on what I was going for. If you're doing for something funkier and drier like a saison I'd say a half bottle or so will be plenty. It will get going and it can get going quick.

3. If a regular yeast would produce a beer with about 75% aa this will produce a beer with much more likely 90% and possibly more. So you will not end up with a 5% beer unless you go to great lengths to provide unfermentable sugars through heavy use of caramel malts and long boils to produce melanoidins and extensive kettle caramelization. Otherwise you will end up with a dry sour beer.

I plan on pitching one bottle into 15 gallons. We will see what happens...

Two things from this thread.

I find it useful to think less in terms of leaving sugars for a wild fermentation, and more in terms of leaving proteins and carbs, particularly beta-glucans.

I am planning to split my vial into a couple five gal batches.

Regarding Saisons, I love to use the Westmalle strain. Clearly not a Saison yeast.

If you wanted to use a smaller pitch of bug country, I think that would be a great opportunity to use the DuPont strain.
Would be easy to have it stop early with a lot left for your blend. As opposed to something like 3711, which we know can dry it out all on it's own.

is two things twice, four things? (sorry

I don't know what you are talking about...

FredTheNuke said:

I plan on pitching one bottle into 15 gallons. We will see what happens...

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Oh zombie thread, rise...

How did this turn out?

sweetcell said:

Oh zombie thread, rise...

How did this turn out?

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Not him, but I pitched a single vial into 13.5 gallons and it turned out excellent.

Damn. I guess I should sample it. Not going to be able to bottle this weekend so don't want to mess with the carboy.

bovineblitz said:

Not him, but I pitched a single vial into 13.5 gallons and it turned out excellent.

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Great as in sour or just funky? Lots of folks saying this blend isn't souring for them.

I have done a few batches with Ecy20 from late 2014, they have all been very sour. I was using about half a vial for 5 gallons.

soundguy said:

I have done a few batches with Ecy20 from late 2014, they have all been very sour. I was using about half a vial for 5 gallons.

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Just checked mine w 2015 ecy20. 3 weeks from brewing pH 3.0! Plenty sour. Most amazing pineapple and grapefruit skin aromas and flavors. Im
Impressed and happy. If I had a beer to blend it with I keg half now.

That sounds very similar to my experience last year. I don't have a pH meter but when racking to secondary after a few weeks they were already very sour and fruity.