ECY Dirty Dozen starter is butter bomb

[nackedei]

Was curious if people who have used ECY34 (or any other lots-o-straints cultures) have any experience with this. I had a bottle from last year's production that I decided to throw into a starter (nothing else in it), hoping it was still viable (I've had good experiences with the viability of ECY bugs).

Nothing odd: 2l of water, 200g of DME, boiled in a flask.

A few days later, the nose is super butter bomb. I know pedio can produce a lot of diacetyl, but it's not supposed to be in ECY34, and the intense degree to which this is buttered popcorn surprised me.

Thoughts?

 

[Agate]

Are you growing it aerobically? Did you taste it? I've been using ecy34 a lot lately and haven't gotten even a hint of diacetyl. But Brett fermentations can be weird early on.

 

[nackedei]

Are you growing it aerobically? Did you taste it? I've been using ecy34 a lot lately and haven't gotten even a hint of diacetyl. But Brett fermentations can be weird early on.

It was on a stir plate, yes.

Thick/slick on the tongue, super buttery. Hard to determine how much of the latter was the aroma, though, it's that strong! While I know Brett fermentations are weird, I couldn't find anything on 100% Brett fermentations producing such outcomes, but it's not like there's a lot out there on complex combinations like ECY34.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

I have seen Brett produce diacetyl. Nothing like what you're writing about and not that set of bugs. I bottled a beer a year and a half ago, though, and added a vial of Yeast Bay Beersel Brettanomyces Blend at bottling. After about a week, it kicked up a bit of diacetyl. Nothing crazy, but it was there. About a week later, it was gone. Weird. Never seen that before or since. I'm down to the last bottle of that beer now and there's no diacetyl to be found.

Anyway, Brett is known to eat diacetyl, but having never used the strains you're writing about, I can't really give advice. I thought this little tidbit might be of some small interest, though. Cheers!

 

[nackedei]

Let it sit for a couple days, figured I'd change my brew-day plans today if it was still a butter bomb.

Now it's got some butter (diacetyl? crazy multi-strain brett stuff?) on the nose, but the taste is pure lemon.

Conclusion: who knows what to expect with an old vial of twelve strains of brett? This will go into 6 gallons, and ECY20 will go into the other. I'll make sure to report back... next January :smack:

 

[nackedei]

In the interest of documenting these bastard bugs, I thought I should note that I decanted a couple small mason jars of the Dirty Dozen starter to use for later (think it would be a nice addition to a Berliner Weisse coming up soon).

36 hours after the whole starter was butter nose and lemon taste, the decanted bit was pure grapefruit juice in the taste, with the butter fading. Fascinating how quickly these are changing, think I might sacrifice one jar to regular testing of flavor development over time.

Same batch of light wort base (just Pils/Maris Otter) in both of the carboys shown below. The one on the right had ~800 mils of a Dirty Dozen starter dumped in (no sacch), fermentation started within 12 hours. The one on the left had ~800 mils of a Bug County starter, plus Jolly Pumpkin dregs added the next day. Activity started 40-48 hours in (some 10-18 hours post-dregs).

Note: neither got much of any break/trub, overshot my efficiency and ended up leaving a lot in the kettle after doing a 90 rather than 120 minute boil. So that difference in clarity is almost entirely fermentation characteristics.