East Coast Brewing Bug County- Flavor profile questions

[KyleWolf]

Hi Everyone.

So I have come into possession of some East Coast Yeast's Bug County culture from a yeast trade. I want to do something fun with it, but with everything in it, I am not sure what the profile is going to look like. I know there are a decent number of threads here about bug county but most are about that fact that they can not find it or it is a TL;DR type thread.

I opened the mason jar of the culture to take a wiff and got a distinct "fruity pebbles" aroma, but that is about as far as I got.

I wanted to know if there is anyone out there with some experience using Bug County that could comment as to the flavor profile, I know it should have pretty good acidity, but I was wondering about fruits vs barn yard vs funk, etc. Basically so I can also get an idea if I want to use this for a flanders, or golden sour, or funky saison. Ideally I would want to brew this soon and have it ready to bottle in the spring.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I am sure excited about giving this bad boy a try!

PS: What would your thoughts be on oak flavors with bug county? I thought about soaking an oak spiral in red wine to wash out the really "fresh" oak flavor and add some complexity by adding that to it, but didn't know if that would play well with the all of the bugs.

Thanks in advance!

MODERATORS: ACCIDENTALLY ADDED THIS IN THE "RECIPES/INGREDIENTS" FORUM RATHER THAN LAMBIC & WILD BREWING. RE-POSTED IN CORRECT FORUM. PLEASE DELETE

 

[KyleWolf]

Hi Everyone.

So I have come into possession of some East Coast Yeast's Bug County culture from a yeast trade. I want to do something fun with it, but with everything in it, I am not sure what the profile is going to look like. I know there are a decent number of threads here about bug county but most are about that fact that they can not find it or it is a TL;DR type thread.

I opened the mason jar of the culture to take a wiff and got a distinct "fruity pebbles" aroma, but that is about as far as I got.

I wanted to know if there is anyone out there with some experience using Bug County that could comment as to the flavor profile, I know it should have pretty good acidity, but I was wondering about fruits vs barn yard vs funk, etc. Basically so I can also get an idea if I want to use this for a flanders, or golden sour, or funky saison. Ideally I would want to brew this soon and have it ready to bottle in the spring.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I am sure excited about giving this bad boy a try!

PS: What would your thoughts be on oak flavors with bug county? I thought about soaking an oak spiral in red wine to wash out the really "fresh" oak flavor and add some complexity by adding that to it, but didn't know if that would play well with the all of the bugs.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Schumed]

hard to explain...very complex...good mix of funk, fruity, and brett.

Makes the perfect sour IMO

 

[j1n]

I have some and im going to make a lambic with it. with this blend id go a year+ with it. by spring seems really soon. the pedio will need some time.

 

[secondbase]

They change this blend yearly. Is this the new 2015 blend? 2014? Is it first generation?


I have a blonde sour I pitched the 2014 blend into and it's tasting pretty good right now, but it's not ready yet. Nice stone fruit, vanilla, and a hint of spice underneath a balanced sourness. Considering this blend contains pedio, Spring might be a little too soon for a beer like this. I'm 10 months into my fermentation, checking on it every two months and it wasn't until 7 months in that it started gaining the complexity I look for in an aged sour.

 

[KyleWolf]

They change this blend yearly. Is this the new 2015 blend? 2014? Is it first generation?


I have a blonde sour I pitched the 2014 blend into and it's tasting pretty good right now, but it's not ready yet. Nice stone fruit, vanilla, and a hint of spice underneath a balanced sourness. Considering this blend contains pedio, Spring might be a little too soon for a beer like this. I'm 10 months into my fermentation, checking on it every two months and it wasn't until 7 months in that it started gaining the complexity I look for in an aged sour.

I believe this is from 2014 as it is a wash from a previous batch. There is quite a bit of it as well. I figured I would start with underpitching a saison or belgian/trappist yeast and then add this in day 2 or day 3 of fermentation after some of the sugars were already chewed up. It was suggested to me that since it would be such a large pitch, it may hurry up the fermentation some. and I say spring, but really I would just let it go till I thought it was ready.

Also, what are your thoughts on using oak in an aged sour? As I mentioned above, I thought about soaking an oak spiral in a red or white wine (depending on the style I decide on) to a) pull out some of the "fresh" oak character and then adding the spiral to give it a "wine barrel" character. Thoughts?