ECY20 Bug Country recipe ideas

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

skeezerpleezer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
2,672
Reaction score
737
Location
Brookhaven, GA
I recently acquired a vial of ECY20 and was working on a recipe to get it used this weekend. I was considering using something similar to the Consecration grain bill, but figured I would see if anyone else had any recommendation based on past experience.

A few more specific questions I have:
-I plan to pitch it into primary, with no other yeast. Is this the way everyone else is using it (I like SOUR, so thats no big deal to me, the more the merrier)
-Mash around 156-158?
-how long before this blend starts to sour up?
-how long to leave the beer on the yeast cake?

thanks in advance
 
I've done both a high gravity oud bruin beer with ECY20, a lambic, and a saison. I think the lambic and saison are my favorites so far with the blend. I mashed the saison like I would any saison just fermented with ECY20. It was/is a great sour beer with in 8 months from brew day to drinking. Then the oud bruin took about 10 months to ferment out that's bottled but has a bitterness from me using purple corn. So the oud bruin will be sitting at least a year in the bottles before I taste another one. Then the Lambic will be going into bottles soon and that was brewed a year ago. It's fantastically sour and complex at this point.

I used this as the only yeast pitched into the wort.

I mashed each beer at the appropriate mash schedules for each style of beer not taking into account the yeast strain getting special attention.

It starts souring fairly fast, 2-3 months.

Depends on the beer. The oud bruin I took it off the yeast cake after three months or so. The lambic is on the yeast cake, and the saison was a "quick" ferment at 4-5 months and it was on the yeast the whole time.
 
I just did the tart of darkness recipe a few days ago so sorry can't provide much detail for a while. Searching around on Google the only info I could really find were the threads snokinghole posted so there doesn't seem to be much info out there. With all those different strains in there it must make a pretty complex beer.
 
I made a second runnings sour beer from a Kolsch using ECY20, 70% Pils 30% Wheat 1.026 boosted with 1lb of DME for a 2.5 gallon batch, and left it on the cake for ~6 months. I just tried the first bottle about a month ago and its wonderfully complex and sour really alot more complex than I had expected since this was a beer I brewed on a whim only bc I felt the culture needed to be woken up a bit.

I brewed a table Saison about 4 months ago with the second generation of ECY20 and it has been sitting on the cake the entire time. I have been planning on taking a reading and bottling it soon. Maybe this will be the kick in the butt I need.
 
I've got a small hoard going, passed two on to a friend and have three to pitch. Will brew something with ECY20 tomorrow. Hard to remember it's called Bug County with no 'R', wonder if it's an inside joke.
 
I just did the tart of darkness recipe a few days ago so sorry can't provide much detail for a while. Searching around on Google the only info I could really find were the threads snokinghole posted so there doesn't seem to be much info out there. With all those different strains in there it must make a pretty complex beer.

How long did it take for you to get active fermentation (assuming that was the only yeast pitched)?
 
I brewed my first beer with this blend last night. Pitched about 13 hrs ago. Just dumped the vial in, no aeartion or stirring. The top gallon is much lighter in color than the rest of the beer. I can see some yest sediment on the bulge in the better bottle where it tends to hang out. No bubbling or other visual activity yet.

ECY 20 smells great. Maybe it was just the New Year's beers, but the smell of the empty vial took me straight back to drinking Cantillion at the brewery, watching the world cup on the small TV there. Gives me high hopes for this blend.

Joe from the homebrew shop told me at least a year. He said it would seem good before then, but to wait it out.
 
I hit my wort with Oxygen and pitched about 24 hours ago and still no signs of fermentation. Not worried yet, just wondered if this was typical for this yeast.
 
How long did it take for you to get active fermentation (assuming that was the only yeast pitched)?

Around 3 days before I started seeing patches on the surface of the wort. A few days after that it bcme a real tick pellicle. I had to move it out of the tub and it splashed around a bit but the pellicle looked unfazed.
 
All my ECY sour cultures were slow starters. A little heat goes a long way getting them running. Eitherway don't worry your beer will ferment with out a doubt. If my mason jar of random bottle yeast from lambics fermented a saison with out issue then an old tube of yeast from ECY will be fine.
 
Yea the first time I used an ECY mixed culture (Bugfarm 5 exactly 1 year ago today) I had no activity for 48 hours. Smokinghole suggested I warm it up a bit so I say the carboy on a heating pad and within 2 hours the thing started to actively ferment, once it hit ~72f things were good from there on out.
 
Yea the first time I used an ECY mixed culture (Bugfarm 5 exactly 1 year ago today) I had no activity for 48 hours. Smokinghole suggested I warm it up a bit so I say the carboy on a heating pad and within 2 hours the thing started to actively ferment, once it hit ~72f things were good from there on out.

Yeah, if the only saccharomyces in this blend is the saison brasserie, I've never seen it ferment below 72. It's going on 36 hrs at 68. I'm going to wait another 36 hrs just to see what happens before I warm it up.
 
Going on 60 hrs. I popped the stopper and took a whiff last night. Beer smelled super buttery, so I'm guessing the pedio is doing well. Thin pellicle is forming, but I guess I'm going to have to bump it up from 68 to get the sacc going.
 
TNGabe said:
Going on 60 hrs. I popped the stopper and took a whiff last night. Beer smelled super buttery, so I'm guessing the pedio is doing well. Thin pellicle is forming, but I guess I'm going to have to bump it up from 68 to get the sacc going.

Was your vial from the September production run?
 
gwood said:
Scratch that. The Flemish is Sept. the Bug County is Oct. I'm wondering if I should pull half the vial and get it active prior to brewing tomorrow.

October. It's fermenting and I bet the sacc would kick in if I bumped the temp. 1/2 vial aerated starter and other half straight is recommended for older than a month, but I figured there was something in there that would be healthy enough.
 
One thing I would like to add about these cultures is depending on the beer style being produced I underpitch the living snot out of these cultures for something like a lambic or a sour saison. I do that for ester development and so forth because the brett will consume the excessive esters produced by the stressed yeast and it will still attenuate. I know some will disagree with my theory, but I think a big part of why the best wild beers taste the way they do is sub 1mil/ml/*plato cell counts going into the beer. So if you decided to brew up a saison I'd just pour a little bit of the culture vial from ECY in there and save the rest. I've done this and used one ECY20 vial on 4-5 beers and that doesn't include what I kept from the bottom of the fermentors.
 
Mine was from October also. Pitched the whole vial into 5.5g of 1.063 wort. Visual fermentation started about 3 days later. I asked ECY via facebook what temp, they said toward the upper end of the recommended temps (60-74) would make it more sour, and some lag is not uncommon. It is now bubbling away, but looks a little different than usual. Lots of small bubbles instead of the typical thick Krausen. Sacc might not have got going too well yet.
 
Just pitched last night. Simple 60/40 pils/wheat (torrified and flaked) grist. I decided to make a starter with half the vial a day ahead. No activity as of yet. Also pitched the Flemish Ale blend in a red. Seven hour brew night!
 
Just wanted to make a small update. I sampled my tart of darkness clone that was pitched with ecy20 as the primary strain. Its only been going for about a month but holy moly is it sour! At this point I couldn't really taste much else so I am sure it will build some complexity in the coming months. It was like warhead candy sour. We will see where it heads the gravity was still a little high at around 1.18 or somewhere abouts so the brett should have plenty to eat in the coming months.
 
How are the other beers looking? I pitched ECY20 to a simple lambic wort (60/40 pils to wheat) a little over 2 weeks ago and got a small krausen about 36 hours in that only lasted for a couple days. Since then, all I've had are some small bubbles rising and a couple patches on top. They look more like left over krausen than a pellicle formation, though.
 
ECY20 effing rules.

I have a solvers going with that in there and a pellicle only formed when I exposed it to oxygen after significant time passed from primary fermentation 3mos-ish.

Let it sit for a looooonnnnnnnng time. You'll be rewarded :)
 
I moved mine down to the cellar, disturbing small pellicle in the process. Wow, smells so good already, can't wait to see where a year takes it.
 
I had similar results as TNGabe. I brewed on 1/31/12, and tried it tonight. It is very sour already after a month. It took a few days to take off, then had a day or 2 of visually active fermentation, then just small bubbles coming up the side but nothing like a normal fermentation. I am going to get some yeast out and add it to some 1 gallon fermenters, have a rye saison that could use some of this funk.
 
Just pulled my first sample last night since brew day (first week of Jan or around there, would have to look at my notes)


Progressing quite nicely. Strong tartness, boarding on sour already. Very slight cherry pie with big stone fruits in the finish. Interesting nose, has slight baking spice intermixed with some very slight musty funk and big fruity notes. So much complexity from such a simple grist. Excited to see where it goes.
 
Does anyone know when /where I can get some of this ECY20? Sounds right up my alley.

When it comes in stock, you can order it from here

LINK

Problem is when ECY comes in stock. Used some Burton Union and it worked great. Follow ECY and love2brew on facebook for updates.

The stuff is as rare as a hen's tooth. I was late to reply to the last two emails/offerings by a couple of hours, evidently they sell out instantly each time. One day...
 
Last time I tried to order, it was sold out in about :10.

Gotta be on the dot with timing for those. Everyone in the country is ordering now (cold shipping season) so it's tough.

I have some ECY20 right now. I could prop up a vial for you if you'd like to trade?
 
Just to throw in there, I'd love some ECY20. (or any other ECY bugs. I've got 1 & 4)
I've got a (amazing) yeast I harvested from my coolship that I'd be happy to send you a slant/slurry of if anyone would like. Just got better packaging equipment so I can send things easier now. PM me if interested. Also have Crooked Stave, and when I drink them Tilquin, D3, maybe others.
Thanks

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/coolship-build-367440/
 
I don't think I have anything cool to trade yet. I have the white labs flemish ale and sour mix currently, but those are not too hard to find. Keep the updates going! If I can't get it I still love reading about it.
 
Back
Top