11.26.2012

Sour Rye Stout with ECY20 Bug County



After about two years of brewing beers with mixed fermentation (sacc, brett, pedio, and lacto) I've actually started bottling and drinking a few of these beers and have been pleasantly surprised by the results.   Saison Bretts can be done in a relatively short period of time (3-6 months), but the sour beers with pedio and lacto take anywhere from 9 months to 2 years or more.    With bottling my first sour beers, Flanders Red, and my Kriek, I sort of discontinued my Flanders series by unintentionally not brewing Flanders beers regularly.    Looking at my line up of beers in carboys I have a whole bunch of light sour beers.   I have 3 or 4 sour Saison's, a Sour Blonde Biere De Garde, an Ithaca Brute Clone, a Lambic, but nothing at all with any color or roast.    I decided that I need to make an effort to brew up some darker style sour beers so that I can get a good understanding of how dark malts hold up to the onslaught of funky mixed fermentations.  

Because Flanders Reds are the most common style of dark sour beer, that is the obvious choice, but recently I had the pleasure of sampling The Bruery Tart of Darkness which is a soured Stout.   I say pleasure, but really it was a challenge for me to drink this beer as it was so extremely tart that I had trouble getting it down.  It took me about 30 minutes to drink a pint, and luckily I shared it with my bro Pawl.   Despite it's extreme-ness, I was definitely intrigued and thought that with a little less sourness, this could be a really amazing drinkable Stout.   The Bruery is now selling this homebrew clone kit on Morebeer.com and so I looked at that recipe and tweaked it a little bit.   Instead of flaked oats I opted for flaked rye.    I've never used rye before but I've always loved what it brings to the table in a Saison, an IPA, and Porters and Stouts.   I thought that if it will help retain a little bit of body in this beer as well as add some spicyness, that could be a really great thing.  This is essentially a Tart of Darkness clone, but with Rye and fermented with East Coast Yeast ECY20- Bug County!   Here is the description of the yeast from the Love2Brew homebrew supply website which is where I bought it..."The mother bugger for sour ales. Contains ECY01, ECY02, ECY03, ECY04, and ECY05. Also includes: Brettanomyces lambicus, bruxellensis, anomulus, clausenii, custersianus, nanus, and naardenensis. Various Lactobacilli and Pediococci were added to round out this LIMITED RELEASE sour blend for 2011."  (maybe a little TOO much going on, but the verdict is still out on ECY20)


Here is my recipe.   I mashed high at 158 degrees and sparged at 168 degrees.

Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Specific Gravity: 1.058 OG
Color: 35° SRM  -  Black
Mash Efficiency: 67 %
Bitterness: 10.3 IBU
Alcohol:  6.9% ABV ?
Calories:  187 per 12 oz.

 

Malt & Fermentables





%
LB
OZ


°L
PPG
79%
11
~
Briess Organic 2-Row

Mash

34
7%
1
~
Flaked Rye

Mash

36
7%
1
~
Breiss Organic Crystal 60L

Mash

60°
34
4%
~
8
Roasted Barley - 550L

Mash

550°
34
3%
~
6
Bairds Chocolate Malt

Mash

475°
33

13
14




4 comments:

  1. I know it's a long process, but how's it coming along so far?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Honestly...no idea. I have so many carboys with souring beer that I tend to just forget about them.

    I brewed it, pitched the yeast and it's been sitting in primary ever sense. When I do mixed fermentation I tend to do it more like a lambic style fermentation where it sits on the yeast sediment for the entire duration. As opposed to the way traditional Flanders Reds are fermented where you do Primary and transfer to secondary. The Lambic style allows the brett do develop more and the Flanders style is a little more clean with less brett.

    I'll take a gravity and PH reading soon to see what this ECY20 has done as I've only used ECY20 a couple of times in the past. I'll give you an update when I know more! Cheers.
    Nick

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sweet! I'm brewing a straight ECY20 beer today... I'm assuming I don't need much headroom in the carboy. Was this your experience, or am i in for a big mess tonight? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You'll definitely need some room in the carboy, but it didn't have a super active fermentation. If I remember correctly it had a rather long lag time and then it kicked up a bit when I put some heat on it. I have a chest freezer that I use as a hot box (I have a space heater in there) so that I can brew my Saison's at hotter temp then 70, so I stuck it in there to kick it off. Would love to hear your results. I just say that Al Buck (East Coast Yeast) announced that they are replacing ECY01 with ECY20 now, so apparently they are happy with the results of ECY20 as a lambic blend!

    ReplyDelete

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