Straight Lambic (Unblended)

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MrOrange

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2011
Messages
287
Reaction score
34
Location
Louisville
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Wyeast 3278
Yeast Starter
Nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
Various Bottle Dregs
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.053
Final Gravity
Didn\\'t Measure
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
6.5
Color
4-5 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
365 Days
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
None
Additional Fermentation
None
Tasting Notes
Awesome
Grain

-7.5 lbs Belgian Pale Malt
-3 lbs Flaked Wheat
-.75 lbs Rice Hulls

Hops

-Hersbrucker - 3.9% AA @ 60mins

Yeast

-2 Packs Wyeast 3278 (first one was close to a year old so I added another one)
-Bottle dregs from 1 bottle of Petrus Aged Pale, 1 bottle of Orval, and 1 bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

Mash - Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Mash at 153F for 75 mins
Fly sparge with 180F water

Notes

- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Petrus Aged Pale on 2/27/12
- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Orval on 3/4/12
- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja on 5/13/12
- Boiled 1 oz of light toast oak chips, drained water and repeated to remove as much oak flavor as possible. Added oak on 6/5/12
- Kept in primary fermenter for approximately one year
- Bottled half uncarbonated to enter into competitions and the other half was bottled to around 1.5 vols/co2
- Flavor is fairly balanced leaning slightly towards acidity over funk


The crappy cell phone picture doesn't really do this beer justice

Lambic 2-20-12.jpg


Pellicle.jpg


Lambic.jpg
 
Just got my results from the Kentucky State Fair homebrew competition. This beer took BEST OF SHOW! I am sooooo excited. The prize for best of show is brewing this beer at a local brewery called Apocalypse Brew Works on their system. This is too cool.

Wow- that's so great! Congrats on this great beer. :rockin:
 
You've peaked my interest. This is next on my "to brew" list. What commercial beer would you compare this to? I' recently gueuze obsessed and ultimately am aiming to re-create something like Gueuze Tilquin, which I suspect will not be easy.

Regards,
Brobeman
 
MrOrange said:
Just got my results from the Kentucky State Fair homebrew competition. This beer took BEST OF SHOW! I am sooooo excited. The prize for best of show is brewing this beer at a local brewery called Apocalypse Brew Works on their system. This is too cool.
What an honor congrats to you!
 
Have you decided how you are going to scale up the culture for the commercial batch?
 
Unfortunately I wasn't able to brew this recipe for the commercial batch. They were too concerned with the bacteria and microbes taking a hold in the brewery. Instead I brewed my Rauchbier
 
You've peaked my interest. This is next on my "to brew" list. What commercial beer would you compare this to? I' recently gueuze obsessed and ultimately am aiming to re-create something like Gueuze Tilquin, which I suspect will not be easy.

Regards,
Brobeman

I'm not really sure what to compare this to commercially. The older it gets the more it changes. At first it was fairly lactic with sort of a background funk aroma. Now it is starting to pick up some fruit notes and it even has a rose type aroma when it warms. If you are looking for something like a gueuze technically you would need to blend different vintages and carbonate quite high. As you said I would think that replicating Gueuze Tilguin would be pretty hard considering that is such an awesome beer. Actually last night I had a Gueuze Tilquin that was brewed with plums that was amazing.
 
MrOrange said:
Unfortunately I wasn't able to brew this recipe for the commercial batch. They were too concerned with the bacteria and microbes taking a hold in the brewery. Instead I brewed my Rauchbier

That's too bad. I can kind of understand their concern, if they don't normally do sours, though.
 
I think I'm going to brew this guy next week. My wife really wants me to do a sour, as she has had a few lately that she really likes.

One question: are the oak chips necessary? Do they serve a purpose besides flavoring?
 
I don't think that the oak chips are necessary. The reason I added them was because I had read in Wild Brews that brettanomyces can actually consume sugars that are in the oak. I'm not sure how much, if anything, this added to the flavor profile but in terms of "oak flavor" there is none in this lambic.
 
in terms of "oak flavor" there is none in this lambic.

This is what I wanted to know. I have done a little reading since I posted this, and it seems the bugs live in the wood. Perhaps this tries to take the place of the wood in the traditional cask-aging process? I'll probably grab some either way. My beer won't be quite the same, as I don't have great access to sour dregs around here, but I'm going to pitch Rosealare (sp?) from the get-go, and see what happens. I'm also planning to drink some of the limited sours I have available, and see what contributions their dregs can make to the flavor.

Thanks for the recipe, and congrats on the BOS.
 
I live in Australia now but am going home to North America next weekend to visit. I figured I'd brew this up while there, so that when I return a year later it will be ready for bottling.

My question is how important are adding the dregs over the course of the year in primary? The beer will be inaccessible to me for obvious reasons...
 
The bugs will definitely give it a different character than if you just pitch a yeast blend like wyeast. Maybe if you pitch some bottle dregs when you do your initial pitch it will add some complexity. I'm not sure that adding them over time is much different from adding them all at once. The only reason I did it that way was I would just add the dregs as I drank the beers.
 
Finally brewing again tomorrow and plan to do this as batch #2. Did you use one oz of hops? I just realized there is no qty specified.

I am going to pitch dregs from a Cantillon Gueuze tomorrow and will add from Tilquin and others over the next several months. If it goes well I hope to blend with a similar one year old in about 3 years.

Thanks again for sharing. I wil try and document its progress here,

Regards,
Brobeman



Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
Finally brewing again tomorrow and plan to do this as batch #2. Did you use one oz of hops? I just realized there is no qty specified.

I am going to pitch dregs from a Cantillon Gueuze tomorrow and will add from Tilquin and others over the next several months. If it goes well I hope to blend with a similar one year old in about 3 years.

Thanks again for sharing. I wil try and document its progress here,

Regards,
Brobeman



Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

So how did this turn out (so far?)
 
What was the boil time? Read several places that lambic should be boiled for 4-5 hours....

Sounds like a great brew! Lambic is my next beer :)
 
Grain

-7.5 lbs Belgian Pale Malt
-3 lbs Flaked Wheat
-.75 lbs Rice Hulls

Hops

-Hersbrucker - 3.9% AA @ 60mins

Yeast

-2 Packs Wyeast 3278 (first one was close to a year old so I added another one)
-Bottle dregs from 1 bottle of Petrus Aged Pale, 1 bottle of Orval, and 1 bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

Mash - Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Mash at 153F for 75 mins
Fly sparge with 180F water

Notes

- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Petrus Aged Pale on 2/27/12
- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Orval on 3/4/12
- Pitched dregs from one bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja on 5/13/12
- Boiled 1 oz of light toast oak chips, drained water and repeated to remove as much oak flavor as possible. Added oak on 6/5/12
- Kept in primary fermenter for approximately one year
- Bottled half uncarbonated to enter into competitions and the other half was bottled to around 1.5 vols/co2
- Flavor is fairly balanced leaning slightly towards acidity over funk


The crappy cell phone picture doesn't really do this beer justice

Congratulations on your brew! I had a couple of questions if you don't mind. I did my first Lambic style All Grain Brew last weekend and did the whole turbid mash raw wheat (not flaked) nine yards. Long brew day for sure. Pitched Wyeast Roselare Blend and plan on adding dregs from consecration. It took off like a rocket and looks good so far.

Given the 18 or so months from brew to drink, I decided that as an insurance policy of sorts, I would brew another lambic style this weekend with some modifications. I am going to use flaked wheat instead of raw kernals, I am using the White Labs 655 Blend, and am going to try infusion mash like your's instead of the whole turbid process.

So, my questions are: Why no protein rest for the flaked wheat, and why no Mash out?

Thanks for all the great information.
 
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