zaireeka

Recipes 

Hi, I want to starting a Kriek Lambic soon in order the have it ready for late summer. I have been think of using the following items to make it: Morgan's Golden Wheat Kit, 6 lbs frozen sour cherries, Saaz hops & a liquid lambic yeast pack.

I would follow the morgans kit instructions asides from the addition of hops & lambic yeast and ferment two weeks. Then secondary onto the cherries and let go for 3-4 months.

My questions are:

Is this a good idea and will it replicate a kriek well?

I can only source frozen sour cherries here in Canada. Should I puree them and then sterilize them with campden tablets? If so how many campden and for how long? Would the addition of campden stop fermentation in the secondary?

Would any specialty grains be a good addition, if so which ones and what quantity?

Any other suggestions would be great!

Thanks,
Dan

maskednegator

Recipes 

Pureed fruit leads to tremendous trub losses. I'd just thaw and pitch, personally.

sonetlumiere85

Recipes 

Some grains for head retention are nice, and maybe a small amount of light crystal or similar types of malts, but they're not necessary at all. Yes, you will lose some volume to trub, but if you let it settle and/or rack enough times, it'll be at most .25 gallons I would guess. Don't bother with campden for the cherries, if they're frozen they'll be fine. Just thaw them out as much as you can in the bag, and handle them as sanitarily as you can when you open the bag.

ericd

Recipes 

I'd ferment with a nice neutral ale yeast (belgian golden ale, for example) then transfer to secondary and add the fruit (whole, with pits if possible) and bugs. That'd be closer to the real thing.

Lambics are made with 60/40 pale malt/flaked wheat.

sonetlumiere85

Recipes 

I've had good results with just using 3278. The bugs won't take effect until you rack onto fruit anyway - I'm pretty sure most of the time they take a month or so to really start. The ale strain in 3278 will still do the bulk of the initial fermentation. I personally don't think it's necessary or authentic to start with one and then add bugs - in the farmhouse breweries they would just throw open the shutters, and the bugs would be there from the start. Also, buying each of the bacterial strains separately would be more expensive than just getting 3278 from the start. Pedio, lacto, brett, sherry, wheat, and ale - that's a lot of yeast packets to buy.