East Coast Yeast Belgian Abbaye

[ryanhope]

Great, cant wait to brew some dubbel and and quad!

 

[uright]

Took a taste sample of the decanted beer from my starter. It is incredibly tart. I messaged Al on facebook. Probably wont be pitching this into my dubbel this weekend.

 

[ryanhope]

Took a taste sample of the decanted beer from my starter. It is incredibly tart. I messaged Al on facebook. Probably wont be pitching this into my dubbel this weekend.

I've never tasted a starter, I should get a starter going soon cause I am doing Ommegang Abbey Ale and Westy 12 clones using this yeast.

 

[loctones]

Reviving this old thread. I got some ECY09 in the mail last week. I'm thinking a dubbel-like grain bill that'll be about 5% ABV and a dark strong or quad. I'm a fan of dubbels, so I'm excited to try it out.

Anyone have any further experience with this yeast that they care to share? Thoughts on using it in a blonde or tripel?

 

[Fermented_minds]

Reviving this old thread. I got some ECY09 in the mail last week. I'm thinking a dubbel-like grain bill that'll be about 5% ABV and a dark strong or quad. I'm a fan of dubbels, so I'm excited to try it out.

Anyone have any further experience with this yeast that they care to share? Thoughts on using it in a blonde or tripel?

I think this yeast would be good for any darker Belgian beer, like a dubbel or a quad.

However, taste your starter first. Looking back at this thread, there are a of of reports of lacto in it, and if the cell stock was not cleaned up, might happen again. Just from my personal experience, I have plated out a number of pure culture ECY Bretts straight from the vial, and they all had bacteria in them. Microscopy showed spherical bacteria (small red colonies on the plate) in the Custersianus I plated out. I was actually unable to pull out a yeast that even resembled brettanomyces from the ~8-10 colonies I examined, and I gave up and decided to just junk it. Al, to his credit, sent a replacement plate, but that was in rough shape so I abandoned it all together. While I haven't looked at the colonies from the Naardenensis plates yet from a ~6 month old vial, there was a lot of bacteria in that as well, just judging from the colony morphology (colonies that are roundish, flat, small, high-gloss and with a transparent appearance). That might have something more to do with the age of the pitch?

Good luck with the brew. Dubbel is hands down my favorite styles.

 

[loctones]

Thanks for the feedback.

I did read the older information in this thread about contaminated yeast samples. I definitely hope I don't have that problem. I brewed what is on track to be my best dubbel a few months ago, and I want another awesome one to add to the stash.

Your experience is very interesting. I brewed what I wanted to be a 100% Brett Saison with ECY (I forget the type) at the beginning of last year. The beer ended up having trouble with fermentation and getting ropy after a few months, which I believe is the result of pedio. I always thought I screwed up the starter, somehow. I definitely may have, but perhaps there was unintended bacteria in the sample as well. Unfortunately, I don't have the lab equipment or skills to check.

 

[Fermented_minds]

Thanks for the feedback.

I did read the older information in this thread about contaminated yeast samples. I definitely hope I don't have that problem. I brewed what is on track to be my best dubbel a few months ago, and I want another awesome one to add to the stash.

Your experience is very interesting. I brewed what I wanted to be a 100% Brett Saison with ECY (I forget the type) at the beginning of last year. The beer ended up having trouble with fermentation and getting ropy after a few months, which I believe is the result of pedio. I always thought I screwed up the starter, somehow. I definitely may have, but perhaps there was unintended bacteria in the sample as well. Unfortunately, I don't have the lab equipment or skills to check.

Ya, it was a little disappointing, especially since a vial is $27 including the shipping costs out to the west coast! Probably just a cell stock issue. Those can always be rectified by simply reisolating. The contaminant in the custersianus was not likely pedio, as the media used likely wouldn't support it and the plates were in an aerobic environment.

 

[smokinghole]

If your dubbel does sour maybe it'll be good just as mine was that soured. Whatever bacteria is in his cell stock for ECY09 it is hop and alcohol tolerant and doesn't get ropy. So yay for that, I isolated it and started using it in my saison pitches too.

I had plated this stuff out on some WLD when I was doing brewery QA a couple years ago. It certainly grew bacteria straight out of the vial. So I emailed Al to say that I found that and he said "oh sounds like lacto" and that was all he responded with really. Thank god it wasn't a pitch that the brewery got for a commercial batch of beer. That could have become an issue to get rid of being hop and alcohol tolerant. Valve seats can be very tricky to CIP areas especially when they're not easily removed from hard piping.

 

[LesIsMore]

I bottled a Golden Strong Ale that I used ECY13 Belgian Abbaye II on earlier this week. I'm not sure how the yeast will work with a GSA, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. I think next I might try a Dark Strong Ale with this yeast.

 

[loctones]

I bottled up my dubbel this week, and there were no hints of sour, which I was happy about. I have enough sour beers going, and want to have a few non-sour Belgian-style beers going.

Tonight I'm going to brew a quad--base pale and pils malt, 1 lb. turbinado, 2 lb. of D180, and a slight amount of caramunich and special B.