ECY20 Repitch advice

[kaz4121]

I have a sour blonde that has been sitting on ECY20 since February. I am planning on transferring into a glass fermenter with fruit for another 6 months.

I want to reuse the ECY20 but am unsure about what sacch strain to pitch alongside the bugs for my next batch. I would guess a Belgian strain would be appropriate, but looking for any recommendations. Any thoughts on pitching rate of the sacch too?

 

[masonsjax]

When I reuse my Bugfarm and Flemish Ale blends, I plan to throw in a little of the Wyeast Forbidden Fruit Belgian strain I have harvested in the fridge. I'm leaning towards under pitching a little to leave more compounds for the brett to work on. I'll probably make a single step starter and pitch half to each carboy. I should have Oldsock's book in hand by that time, so maybe I'll have more insight on what to do then.

 

[dcHokie]

I have a sour blonde that has been sitting on ECY20 since February. I am planning on transferring into a glass fermenter with fruit for another 6 months.

I want to reuse the ECY20 but am unsure about what sacch strain to pitch alongside the bugs for my next batch. I would guess a Belgian strain would be appropriate, but looking for any recommendations. Any thoughts on pitching rate of the sacch too?

ECY20 contains "various "wild" Saccharomyces species", probably tough to replicate that. No experience here as I haven't repitched my ECY20 yet, but I would think a normal pitch of a belgian strain or a clean american yeast would be fine. The bugs and brett are going to eat any remaining sugars and overpower sacch esters over time.

Sidenote: I'd suggest giving it a few more months and waiting until the beer is "done" before adding your fruit.

 

[FredTheNuke]

Trow' some WLP001 at it!

 

[kaz4121]

ECY20 contains "various "wild" Saccharomyces species", probably tough to replicate that. No experience here as I haven't repitched my ECY20 yet, but I would think a normal pitch of a belgian strain or a clean american yeast would be fine. The bugs and brett are going to eat any remaining sugars and overpower sacch esters over time.

Sidenote: I'd suggest giving it a few more months and waiting until the beer is "done" before adding your fruit.

Does that mean I should wait to transfer, or just wait to add fruit? Maybe I will hold off since I have the American Sour Beers on preorder as well..

 

[dcHokie]

Does that mean I should wait to transfer, or just wait to add fruit? Maybe I will hold off since I have the American Sour Beers on preorder as well..

From the table of content pics, there is a whole chapter devoted to adding fruits & vegetables to sours. This entire sub-forum seems to be anxiously awaiting the book! Mike also had a great article on adding fruit to sour beers in BYO (Sept 2010) that I refer back to quite a bit.

A couple good quotes from that article:

"The later in the process you add fruit the more fresh aromatics will carry through into the finished beer. The advantage to waiting to add fruit...ensures that the wild yeast and bacteria are the dominant organisms allowing them to consume the greatest portion of the fruit sugars, resulting in more sourness. After a beer ages 6-12 months, it should taste mildly sour...the lactic bacteria are hard at work. This is a great time to add fruit...leave the beer on the fruit for at least two months and even longer is often better."

Obviously it is personal preference if you think the beer is ready now. I would wait a few more months and rack once, onto the fruit, rather than transferring now.

 

[smokinghole]

My advice for a repitch of a sour blend like this, if you want to make a lambic esque very funky beer is to take an amount you consider as an underpitch volume. Then half that volume and pitch that. The yeast will rock and roll, I promise. I know this goes against conventional wisdom but recent scientific studies of wild fermentations has shown that the cell density of spontaneous fermented beers only reaches near 1mil/ml at the height of primary fermentation so the cell density at pitch is WAY WAY less like 100,000 cells/ml if my memory is correct regarding the "American Coolship ales" paper.

The last sour I brewed from a repitch was 14 gallons of 1.040 wort with 20ml of yeast resuspended in a total volume of 50ml. Oh yeah and the pitch was from a fermentation that was over 9 months old or more. Give it a shot, the primary will smell really weird I bet, but it gets so good later on.

 

[FredTheNuke]

But does the repitch volume really matter with yeast and bacteria that take months to work? Obviously you want to ensure the yeast you add takes hold instead of some random strain - but IMO with sours the typical rules for pitching calculators don't apply. Any crazy esters or diacetyls or other byproducts will all get cleaned up by the Brett, Lacto and Pedio later on in fermentation. Just as long as your targeted Sacc and Bugs are the dominant species I think you are Good To GO!

 

[adrock430]

I repitched ECY20 and there's a good deal of ethyl acetate in it, will have to blend. But this is an n of one, and wild ferments do as they please.

I'd go heavy on the sacc you add (any saison would do, as well as chico) and be careful with the amount of the ECY slurry. Next lambic I do will be a fresh wlp or wyeast lambic blend, plus a little bugfarm slurry. Should yield the same result, with less initial acetobacter

 

[smokinghole]

I have decided for my tastes way less on a initial pitch is mo betta in the end. Nothing is always true with wild yeast yeast though. Forcing growth and replication through underpitching forces them down a different metabolic path than if overpitched. I think thatore closely gets us what we are after flavorwise.