I am psyched to finally try something from East Coast Yeast. I got lucky enough to snag a vial of Bug Farm from love2brew.com who sporadically puts up some of Al Buck's bugs for sale. For those not in the know, Bug Farm is a yeast and bacteria blend from ECY that contains Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus, with the Brett population taking more than half of the culture. ECY also gives you a generous amount of cells - something like 500 billion in this particular blend.
The hard part was deciding how I wanted to use this animal. I knew I was either going to make a lambic-style ale, or a tart, funky, farmhouse-style ale. In my mind, I could take one of these three routes in the yeast/bacteria department:
1. Pitch Bug Farm into primary as the sole yeast/bacteria, allowing the beer to age for a good, long time (probably 1 year or more), ultimately making something lambic-like.
2. Ferment the beer out with a farmhouse Sacch. strain and then pitch Bug Farm into secondary, allowing the bugs to slowly eat away at the remaining sugars and starches.
3. Pitch Bug Farm and a farmhouse strain at the same time, with the idea that the saison strain will do the bulk of the fermenting up front, giving me mostly saison character, but giving the Brett, Lacto, and Pedio more of a head start on developing funky and tart character with the remaining sugars and starches.
I opted to go with #3. As much as I enjoy lambics and lambic-style beers, I love rustic farmhouse-style beers even more, and my hope is that this will leave me with a tart, funky, complex saison without a tremendously long aging time. I plan to first taste the beer at around the 3-4 month mark and then age longer if needed. The Bug Farm blend does contain Pediococcus, of which certain strains are known for producing diacetyl. If I get too much diacetyl after a few months, then I will need to extend the aging time to allow the Brett to clean things up.
In addition to trying out East Coast Yeast for the first time, I am also trying out a new yeast lab for my primary strain, Imperial Organic Yeast, a relatively new yeast lab based in Portland, Oregon. I was excited to find them because they carry the Blaugies strain, which is possibly my favorite saison strain (they call it B56 Rustic). The only other yeast lab I know of who carries it for homebrewers is Wyeast (3726), and they only release it 3 months out of the year. Another cool thing about Imperial Yeast is that their pitches contain around 200 billion cells, double what Wyeast and White Labs offer, and it comes packaged in cool-looking little recyclable aluminum cans.
As for the recipe, I kept things fairly simple in the grain and hop department. The only somewhat (but not really) unusual thing I did was to use a large portion of Vienna malt at 30% of the total grain bill. I'm hoping this will give the beer a somewhat deep golden hue and add some complexity to the flavor. I also added a decent portion of flaked oats to give the beer a bit more body and to give the bugs something to chew on after the Blaugies strain has taken care of business. The hops were left over from my last brew - that's the only reason I used 2 different varieties. I kept the total IBUs under 10 so as not to impede the Lacto and Pedio from doing their jobs.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.
Recipe Specifications
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.3 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 4.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 8.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes
62% - Belgian Pilsner
30% - Vienna Malt
8% - Flaked Oats
(Also added 1.5oz of Acid malt to get pH in the right range)
Hops:
.21 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellet, 4.8% AA) @ 60 minutes - 6.1 IBUs
.12 oz. Saaz (Pellet, 3.6% AA) @ 60 minutes - 2.6 IBUs
Other:
1/2 teaspoon crushed black peppercorn @ 5 minutes
Yeast/Bacteria:
Imperial Organic Yeast - Rustic (B56)
East Coast Yeast Bug Farm (ECY01) - pitched into primary
Water:
RO filtered water - added 3 grams of calcium chloride and 2.2 grams of gypsum to the strike water.
Mash:
Single-infusion @ 149 degrees (80 min)
Notes:
Brewed on 3/12/16. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees.
3/13/16 - Very active fermentation by the morning. Letting fermentation temp free-rise.
3/19/16 - Racked into 3-gallon carboy. SG down to 1.005.
5/8/16 - Sampled beer. Starting to develop some Brett funk and light acidity. Acidity is a touch lower than I hoped it would be at this point, so I may need to let it sit a bit longer than originally intended.
7/23/16 - Sampled again. Has some nice funk from the Brett, but there is still hardly any noticeable acidity which is surprising and disappointing since ECY001 contains both Lacto and Pedio. I may add some sour dregs to get this animal headed in a more tart direction.
7/31/16 - Added dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja
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