diff --git a/logback-ecs-encoder/README.md b/logback-ecs-encoder/README.md
index 3980df8b..c2463b29 100644
--- a/logback-ecs-encoder/README.md
+++ b/logback-ecs-encoder/README.md
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # ECS Logback Encoder
 
-The minimum required logback version is 1.2.
+The minimum required logback version is 1.1.
 
 ## Step 1: add dependency
 
diff --git a/logback-ecs-encoder/src/main/java/co/elastic/logging/logback/EcsEncoder.java b/logback-ecs-encoder/src/main/java/co/elastic/logging/logback/EcsEncoder.java
index f8a144ae..b009e9e6 100644
--- a/logback-ecs-encoder/src/main/java/co/elastic/logging/logback/EcsEncoder.java
+++ b/logback-ecs-encoder/src/main/java/co/elastic/logging/logback/EcsEncoder.java
@@ -33,6 +33,8 @@
 import co.elastic.logging.JsonUtils;
 import org.slf4j.Marker;
 
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.OutputStream;
 import java.nio.charset.Charset;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Iterator;
@@ -48,6 +50,7 @@ public class EcsEncoder extends EncoderBase<ILoggingEvent> {
     private ThrowableProxyConverter throwableProxyConverter;
     private boolean includeOrigin;
     private final List<Pair> additionalFields = new ArrayList<Pair>();
+    private OutputStream os;
 
     @Override
     public byte[] headerBytes() {
@@ -61,6 +64,28 @@ public void start() {
         throwableProxyConverter.start();
         eventDataset = EcsJsonSerializer.computeEventDataset(eventDataset, serviceName);
     }
+    /**
+     * This method has been removed in logback 1.2.
+     * To make this lib backwards compatible with logback 1.1 we have implement this method.
+     */
+    public void init(OutputStream os) {
+        this.os = os;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * This method has been removed in logback 1.2.
+     * To make this lib backwards compatible with logback 1.1 we have implement this method.
+     */
+    public void doEncode(ILoggingEvent event) throws IOException {
+        os.write(encode(event));
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * This method has been removed in logback 1.2.
+     * To make this lib backwards compatible with logback 1.1 we have implement this method.
+     */
+    public void close() throws IOException {
+    }
 
     @Override
     public byte[] encode(ILoggingEvent event) {