Ryan_PA
Well-Known Member
I have been wanting to do a lambic for some time, and think I might pull the trigger next week, but I have no access to aged hops. I tried searching for an online retailer, I believe freshops.com used to sell them, but came up empty. I have some 'older' hops in the freezer, but they have been properly stored, so I knew in the current state they were not suitable. I did some high level research on the internet, and found some folkd have had some good results with artificially aging them in the oven.
I did a detailed write up of the process here if anyone is interested, but overall, I will say, it appears to have worked to a satisfactory degree. Clearly, having real aged hops would be a much better option, but I am happy enough with the result of my experiment to move forward with breing the first lambic that I will let age for a long, long, time. My goal is to use this first batch for blending a few years down the line.
The process, in short, is:
I did a detailed write up of the process here if anyone is interested, but overall, I will say, it appears to have worked to a satisfactory degree. Clearly, having real aged hops would be a much better option, but I am happy enough with the result of my experiment to move forward with breing the first lambic that I will let age for a long, long, time. My goal is to use this first batch for blending a few years down the line.
The process, in short, is:
- Select a low AA leaf hop, that has some age
- Spread on a cookie sheet, and bake at 200* for 3-4 hours
- Allow additional aging in a warm/hot area of the house for another week or so