par383

Recipes 

My Girlfirend has been obsessed with lambics lately...especially Framboise. She has requested I try to make a Framboise myself. While I was at my LHBS today picking up supplies, I talked to another guy there, who mentioned that lambics take a while to make. I was going to brew in the primary, rack to secondary in a week/week-and-a-half, adding frozen raspberries in the secondary. I thought 2 weeks in the secondary should be good, but now I have doubts.

Does anyone have any ideas?

BigKahuna

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Ya...Try like....A year or more.


Search Evan! posts about infection, he's doing something similar.

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the_bird

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You could always try making another kind of fruit beer, like an American Wheat with a crapload of fruit in the secondary, but yeah... lambics are usually brewed and let to age for a year or more. I'm actually going to put out some hops to let age for a year or so, so that hopefully in twelve months' time I have some aged hops that will be appropriate for brewing a lambic.

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par383

Recipes 

hmmmm....I really had no idea they took that long. I got a lot of 2-row, cara-pils, and some 40 L grains, hoping to brew an ale (It's coincidentally my first all-grain). I might be changing my mind now...

Actually, I'll probably go back to my LHBS and just do 2 batches, then...try out the lambic, and then make something I want. I don't think I can wait a year for a new homebrew.

Thanks for your help!

BigKahuna

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Did you already shell out the cash for the lambic culture? Just brew that up with a nice clean dry ale yeast (Notty if you can find it) and rack onto a TON of fruit! It will be good.

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par383

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I couldn't find a lambic yeast, so I went with the White Labs Belgian Ale Yeast. I think that it should do the job.

BigKahuna

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And it will make a good beer....just won't be a lambic (So it won't really take a year). I say go for it....and post up some pictures.

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par383

Recipes 

It's been a few weeks now, and I'm ready to add my raspberries. I bought about 6# of frozen raspberries. I've tried looking for a good answer, but I haven't been able to really find an answer.

Should I pasteurize the berries in 170*F water before adding to the secondary, or can I just add the frozen bags? I've seen some other posts about pureeing fruit. Is that a good technique?

A4J

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I meant to post to this thread when it was first posted.

My wife wanted me to brew up a lambic too, but instead I brewed her up a raspberry wheat but it's totally different from a lambic and she still wants me to do a lambic. I have some old hops so I'm probably gonna be starting one pretty soon.

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lamarguy

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I'd recommend pasteurizing fresh/frozen fruit to avoid any unwanted bacterial infections.

The technique I've always used is:

1.) Add the fruit (in a mesh bag) during the last 10 minutes of the boil to pasteurize and extract the "cooked" fruit flavors.

2.) Cool the pasteurized fruit and immediately add it to the fermenter.

3.) Ferment using your preferred method.