bug country 2014

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finsfan said:
I wouldnt. Bugs can last a long time compared to saach, especially at fridge temps.
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Do you think an Abbey-style strain or a saison strain would be preferred over an English or American strain? I think I've heard that the bugs will eat esters, which would point towards an estery Belgian strain. (I'm in the same boat as slickfish, hence my add-on question. :) )
 
barrooze said:
Do you think an Abbey-style strain or a saison strain would be preferred over an English or American strain? I think I've heard that the bugs will eat esters, which would point towards an estery Belgian strain. (I'm in the same boat as slickfish, hence my add-on question. :) )
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In american sour beers he mentions that a lot of sour breweries use saison yeast. I would use a belgian strain over a neutral strain.
 
Yup - Read The Tonsmiere - LOL

Pick a commercial brewery sour you like from the book and read up on how they get the flavor profile.
 
FredTheNuke said:
Yup - Read The Tonsmiere - LOL

Pick a commercial brewery sour you like from the book and read up on how they get the flavor profile.
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Great point. You can use just about any saach strain along with bugs/bacteria from the beginning, but I personally have used/would use a saison or at least belgian strain.
 
I recall getting my vial around January of last year, so I think this Facebook post says what is in the January 2014 batch:

Facebook said:
The limited release for ECY20 BugCounty is approaching (Nov/Dec). A few facts - there is no bulk yeast strain and no Acetobacter in the mix.

There will be a total of 20 organisms in the culture: Brettanomyces yeast make up the bulk of the blend (15 strains/species) including bruxellensis, lambicus, clausenii, anomala, custersianus, nanus, naardenensis. Bretts from the old ECY blends #1 and # 9 are back including not one but two stains from Drie Font. Also the brett from ECY03 was included of course.

A wild yeast isolated from gueuze was added called Pichia membranefacians. Although very little impact is expected from this oxidative yeast (no acetic acid was detected), it is likely to assist in pellicle formation.

Two Saccharomyces yeast are included. One a sherry yeast, the second a close relative of S. cerevisae called S. paradoxus. Paradoxus has been linked to wine additions for its aromatic properties, pectinase activity, and the ability to partially convert malic to lactic acid.

Finally, two lactobacilli are added with a healthy dose of slime-producing Pediococcus. Slime produced will dissapear and be consumed by Bretts adding more complexitiy.

BugCounty is intended for all kinds of wild beers - especially lambic-style ales, Oud Brune/Flemish red ales. BugCounty will infect any beer.
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There's actually no Sacch. cerevisae in the vial, which I find interesting. Regardless, I think I'll pitch a pack of Danstar Belle Saison or Abbaye into the wort when I pitch the vial, just to make sure there's enough viable cells to make it a party. :mug:
 
That is some great info. Like I had posted earlier, the ECY website mentions the Pichia being in the current blend, so it is cool to get a tiny bit more information about that one.

But the site also says this round has something called Kloeckera, which I am guessing is also some sort of non-Sacch-cerevisiae wild yeast. It would be great if somebody could dig up more info on that one. I tried the googles, but didn't come up with much.
 
Mine is on track for delivery tomorrow. However they'd be fermenting my dead body if I attempted a brew day this weekend instead of making progress on our gutted main bath.
 
Mine is supposed to come Friday. I'm wicked excited about it. Going to make two 3 gallon batches from it.


Pediophile in the Rye
3 Lbs Red Wheat Malt
2 Lbs 2 row
1 Lb Flaked Rye
.5 Lb Maltodextrin
.5oz Willamette @15 min.


The Sour Side of Darkness - Based off of Ken Schramms "Heart of Darkness Mead"
2Lbs Honey
2Lbs Raspberries
4 Cups of Black Currant Juice
2 Lbs tart Cherries
 
finsfan said:
I bet you could make that work. It is quite a large slurry. It may just take a little longer than pitching into 5 gallons but I dont see any bad reasons to avoid doing 10 gallons. You may get some more interesting flavors as the yeast will be more stressed, but I wouldnt think they would be bad flavors at all.
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I pitched one vial into 13.2 gallons along with dregs from one bottle of Sour in the Rye. It took off within 12 hours, I was shocked.
 
 
I'll give you guys credit for having patience. I swore off ECY a year ago because I didn't like playing games when it came time to order yeast. I still order from luv2brew, just not yeastm that I leave to The Yeast Bay. Cheers
 
Eh. Joe sends an email out when he's got collections in, you respond and get 5-8 vials. It's not like sitting in the fridge the bugs are gonna go bad in a few months.

I can't really fathom that being more patient than the patience required to wait 12-24 months on a sour!
 
I tried ordering from Joe a few times and had to get refunds each time cause the collections sell out in seconds. I also didn't really want to buy 5-8 vials just to get the one I'm looking for. Keeping an eye on Love2brew I have been able to buy exactly what I wanted without jumping through hoops or spending tons of money on yeast I don't plan to use. Patience isn't a problem for most brewers.
 
ECY20 in a Flanders Red less than 24 hours after pitch. Was ready for a serious lag (vial was produced in late sept), but this thing is cranking!

A bit worried about the temps. I don't know why I thought the lower end of the temp range was 70, so I just let it go at an ambient temp of 69/70. Too late to try and cool it now? Most likely explains the vigorous churn so quickly.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1421112039.403182.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1421112051.473822.jpg
 
Has anyone had success reusing the cake on this? I want to start my sour blonde this week, let it ferment for 4-6 weeks and then rack into a new carboy and use part of the cake to make an oud bruin.
 
secondbase said:
Has anyone had success reusing the cake on this? I want to start my sour blonde this week, let it ferment for 4-6 weeks and then rack into a new carboy and use part of the cake to make an oud bruin.
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Don't have any experience yet, but my plan is to pitch half into an Oud Bruin, wait 3 to 6 months, pitch the other half into a 60/40 blend of pils and wheat, then use the cake from that to make another Oud Bruin this time next year. I'll add a little Sacch to next year's Oud Bruin, just to ensure proper attenuation, especially since the cake will have been sitting so long, but it should work.
 
I haven't used mine yet but I plan to reuse it indefinitely in a 15 gallon solera project. I repitched both Roesalare and Bugfarm and they both seem to be coming along nicely.
 
I pitched one of my bottles into my 60 gallon Solera to spice up the Roeselare that just wasn't getting it done…
 
Got a 1.054 sour blonde going tonight. Mostly 2-row, a little Maris otter, and some wheat and oats for body/head. Attached a blow off tube and I'm off to bed.
 
If you're looking for bug farm instead of bug County. I would just subscribed to the love to brew thread and wait until they have it in stock.
 
finally used my vial yesturday after a few months of waiting for a fermenter to free up. i brewed 10 gallons of a Belgian blonde and split it into two batches. 5 gallons got 3 pounds of wild blueberries and 3 pounds of blackberries and wlp 550 Belgian yeast. and the other 5 gallons got a vial of bug county. i just transfered my second gen of rosalare cake into 5 big vials and plan to pitch that into the bug county in about a month to add to the complexity of this beer.
 
i was going to write the same... Roesalare doesn't have much to contribute to ECY20. everything in the Roe is tamer. it won't hurt much to add the Roe, other than its bugs might eat up some of the sugars that ECY20's might otherwise. honestly, i'd skip the Roe.
 
secondbase said:
Got a 1.054 sour blonde going tonight. Mostly 2-row, a little Maris otter, and some wheat and oats for body/head. Attached a blow off tube and I'm off to bed.
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Sounds like the recipe for American Sour from the Tonsmeier book. Brewed my variation this weekend:

For 11 gallons:
15.5 lbs Belgian Pilsner
4.5 lbs Maris Otter
2 lbs American White Wheat Malt
1 lbs Flaked Oats
1 lbs Flaked Wheat
1.5 oz Midnight Wheat

Mashed at 154 for 75 min then ramped to 169. Added the flaked wheat during the ramp.

Boiled 2 hours, added 2 oz Willamette Hops at 70 min for 16 IBU.

Pitched 1 vial December 2014 ECY20. Also added dregs from a bottle of berliner weiss homebrew brewed with Brett Trois (WLP 644) and Gigayeast fast souring Lacto (GB110) in primary. Pitched at 74F in fermenter set control to 68F. No oxygen other than agressive splashing during transfer. Transfered to primary with fair amount of trub and hops.

OG 1.065...overshot gravity as this was my first time with direct fire recirc fly sparge mash and I got 84% vs expected 75%. Was super clear wort coming out of the mash tun which became quite cloudy when cooled to room temperature (before and after boil). Had nice hot break in kettle with big egg drop soup strands. Forgot to add whirlfloc and yeast nutrient.

Will give it a few days at the lower temp then bump to 70. Primary is a 15 gal plastic bucket with loose fitting lid. Once krausen starts to fall will transfer to secondary and let ride a year in my basement which gradually changes from 65-74F over course of year.

ph
mash 5.21
pre boil 5.44
post boil 5.33
 
eric19312 said:
Sounds like the recipe for American Sour from the Tonsmeier book. Brewed my variation this weekend:

For 11 gallons:
15.5 lbs Belgian Pilsner
4.5 lbs Maris Otter
2 lbs American White Wheat Malt
1 lbs Flaked Oats
1 lbs Flaked Wheat
1.5 oz Midnight Wheat

Mashed at 154 for 75 min then ramped to 169. Added the flaked wheat during the ramp.

Boiled 2 hours, added 2 oz Willamette Hops at 70 min for 16 IBU.

Pitched 1 vial December 2014 ECY20. Also added dregs from a bottle of berliner weiss homebrew brewed with Brett Trois (WLP 644) and Gigayeast fast souring Lacto (GB110) in primary. Pitched at 74F in fermenter set control to 68F. No oxygen other than agressive splashing during transfer. Transfered to primary with fair amount of trub and hops.

OG 1.065...overshot gravity as this was my first time with direct fire recirc fly sparge mash and I got 84% vs expected 75%. Was super clear wort coming out of the mash tun which became quite cloudy when cooled to room temperature (before and after boil). Had nice hot break in kettle with big egg drop soup strands. Forgot to add whirlfloc and yeast nutrient.

Will give it a few days at the lower temp then bump to 70. Primary is a 15 gal plastic bucket with loose fitting lid. Once krausen starts to fall will transfer to secondary and let ride a year in my basement which gradually changes from 65-74F over course of year.

ph
mash 5.21
pre boil 5.44
post boil 5.33
Click to expand...



I based my recipe off his. I don't have much experience with Maris Otter in funky beers so I decided I'd give it a try. Yours looks good too.
 
Bucket of wort is chilling outside in the blustery snow. I expect I'll be pitching the bugs by dinner time.

1.048 wort

50% Pilsner
20% Flaked Wheat
10% each Rye Malt, Dark Wheat Malt, and Golden Naked Oats
1oz Hallertau in the mash
15 minute boil

After a week of fermentation I'll rack to the neck of a 3 gallon carboy for the long haul.
 
Quaker said:
Bucket of wort is chilling outside in the blustery snow. I expect I'll be pitching the bugs by dinner time.

1.048 wort

50% Pilsner
20% Flaked Wheat
10% each Rye Malt, Dark Wheat Malt, and Golden Naked Oats
1oz Hallertau in the mash
15 minute boil

After a week of fermentation I'll rack to the neck of a 3 gallon carboy for the long haul.
Click to expand...

Huh. Only a 15 minute boil. I saw that and thought, "Duh." If you want low IBUs, there is no reason for a long boil. But then I realized that for my Bug County batch, I needed the boil-off from a full 60 minute boil to get the gravity/volume I was aiming at.

Regardless, I'll remember the short boil time for future batches. I do still have about 75 mL in the Bug County bottle.
 
My efficiency was a lousy 60% due to the extreme laziness of a full volume mash and no sparge. I almost committed to a longer boil to make up the extra points. Then I spied my light DME on the shelf for starters and dumped in enough to hit my mark. I had everything cleaned up by 10:30am.

I only pitched about 60ml of my vial into this batch. I don't really have any plans for the other half. If anyone's in the Milwaukee/Racine/Kenosha, WI area, I could be talked out of it.
 
Just brewed up a simple 60% 2 row/40% white wheat bill and pitched the whole vial at 70. I did not add oxygen at all. I brewed it last night and it is really chugging along this morning. Pretty happy i used a blow off tube on this one. Well hopefully in a year i can report back with good news.
 

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