Turbid mashed lambic and ECY20/01

Well today my friend Mike and I brewed a turbid mashed lambic. What a ***** to brew I must say. I'm just glad we had two people brewing. The mash was super thick and pulling wort out I basically had to siphon it out through a hose because it would have taken an hour to run a gallon out having .3qts/gal the first infusion. For the first strike at a mash temp of 113 I just used my hands to mix the water in with the grain because the temp was low enough and it was just easier to work it like dough. So many hours later we had two pots boiling with old ass hops until we could combine both pots into one.

One fermentor will get ECY01 one fermentor will get ECY20. They will be fermented at two separate houses which will help with the blending and bottling down the road.

One thing I was very surprised with was the mash almost solidified, it looked like and was sitting like a shrunken brick after the sparge in the mash tun. I'm thinking I'll brew another up as long as I have the space in about 8 months or so so we have something to blend with for bottling. This East Coast Yeast stuff is very aggressive and works fast. So these may be quicker than I thought even with the turbid mash. Only time will tell how the turbid mash affected the fermentability of the wort. All in all there were 10oz of aged old hops in the beer.

That's fantastic! What kind of lambic is it? I have been really interested in giving it a shot myself. Did you take any pictures by chance?

I brewed up my first Lambic with ECY20 about 10 weeks ago. Just took a sample and it's down to 1.009 (calculated refracometer reading, OG: 1.052). The taste is remarkably similar to apple cider as it has quite a bit of clean sour apple tartness with a bit of tannin. While this beer is nowhere close to complete, it's very clear it will not lack for acidity.

Do you have any concerns that the various Saison yeasts will impart a flavor that is not typical of a Lambic?

In my lambic solera I did a triple decoction mash the first year. I was happy with the results. This last December when I put in the second year's filling I did a triple decoction mash but added some whole wheat flour in the boil. I'll be interested to see if it adds anything significant in the way of flavor. I'm not sold on the idea of spending so much time trying to do a turbid mash but if the starch addition makes for a better beer than perhaps I will suck it up and get turbid.

thebadpun said:

I brewed up my first Lambic with ECY20 about 10 weeks ago. Just took a sample and it's down to 1.009 (calculated refracometer reading, OG: 1.052). The taste is remarkably similar to apple cider as it has quite a bit of clean sour apple tartness with a bit of tannin. While this beer is nowhere close to complete, it's very clear it will not lack for acidity.

Do you have any concerns that the various Saison yeasts will impart a flavor that is not typical of a Lambic?

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I don't really have a concern that ECY20 will make saison flavors. I fermented a saison wort with ECY03 and ECY20 back in November. The sour portion tastes nothing like a saison. The acid and the brett will and did chew through any of the flavor contributions by the saison yeast. I have a oud bruin wort going with the ECY20 right now and the same has happened. It has a slight funkiness that will likely build. It's already pretty sour. So this will be my third fermentation with ECY20.

Paymygasbill77 said:

That's fantastic! What kind of lambic is it? I have been really interested in giving it a shot myself. Did you take any pictures by chance?

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It's just going to be straight. I will likely bottle some of it as straight if it tastes good and then bottle a lot of it as a gueuze. I will not be blending with fruits likely. I like fruit versions but I love just plain funky sour gueuze and lambic.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

In my lambic solera I did a triple decoction mash the first year. I was happy with the results. This last December when I put in the second year's filling I did a triple decoction mash but added some whole wheat flour in the boil. I'll be interested to see if it adds anything significant in the way of flavor. I'm not sold on the idea of spending so much time trying to do a turbid mash but if the starch addition makes for a better beer than perhaps I will suck it up and get turbid.

Click to expand...

I do turbid mashes precisely because I want to lengthen my brew day. Sour beers are going to age for so long and you really only play a part in their creation on brew day. Plus it is a new challenge breaking up the monotony of single infusion mashes.

I think single infusion mashes are good for making standard American and English (with most American styles are based on) beers.

For the mystical beers of historic fame like Lambics, Trappist ales, Saisons, Czech Pils, German Bocks....I think it is necessary to use something other than a single infusion unless that's all the brewery does. From what I know after doing extensive reading and research most of the most famous beers of the world are not single infusions. I do not believe melanodin malt replaces decoctions, I do not think sugar is a good replacement a proper mash paired with the right yeast and other microbes.

I got into this hobby for the ability to make comparable examples of beers that I'd have to pay $100+ for a case. I think I'm finally producing such beers after two years and that is mostly due a refusal of the current conventional wisdom. That being, in my opinion, single infusions and specialty grains to make up for intensive mash procedures and proper fermentation timelines. I don't brew in this manner. The only time I do single infusion is for English or American styles of beer. I prefer to use base malts as much as possible and limit specialty grains. It wasn't until very recently in brewing history that the variety of malts have been available to the brewer. Now i'm not denouncing their place because they are like spices in the culinary world. However I think before you walk you have to learn how to crawl with a specific style of beer. All to often homebrewers are drawn into the more/bigger is better approach, but take shortcuts with single infusions.

Turbid mashing is I think needed because of the molecular effects it likely has on the sugars and starches in the mash. A single infusion is not subjecting the carbohydrates to the same temperatures and pressures as a turbid mash. So I think to best emulate a lambic you need to do a turbid mash.

I'm going to get off my soap box now, because I need to go on a beer run!

well stated!

I completely agree. English beers I would lump in with the others, because I enjoy bitters, Ipa's, and the like that use a base malt and brewers sugar. I no longer use any specialty malts in these two.

So I didn't take gravity and pitch yeast till the next day. I let it do the no chill thing since lambic self cools anyhow. The gravity was at 1.060 which I diluted down to 1.050. I have between 11 and 12 gal of wort.

ECY01 and ECY20 pitched with partial cultures, not full bottles, into each respective fermentor. I will let them fight to ferment. I hear due to the aggressiveness of these cultures it may finish out with in a year. That may very well be true as I did an Oud Bruin using ECY20 and it's tasting great already after only 5 months. Nice acidity and good funk. I'll check the bruin again in two months.

I'll update on any transfers, taste samples, gravity measurements or pH measurements on this fermentation.

awesome - keep posting - those east coasts yeasts seem like the bomb!

Okay the beer went in the fermentor smelling funky because of the old hops I bought from Hopsdirect. They smelled slightly cheesy like aged hops should I suppose.

I transferred half the batch out of the primary bucket sucking lots of trub up intentionally. That way it can sit in a 5 gal carboy for a long time till its finished. The interesting thing was the aroma was of juicy fruit and other fruity esters at this point. It's been a week since it started fermenting from partial cultures. I did not take a taste at transfer but I did a gravity reading.

The gravity went from 1.050 to 1.030 in 7 days. It went crazy on day two/three and slowed down since then. So I think that the saccharomyces is probably done or close to done at this point and the brett and bacteria will begin to drop the gravity from here on out.

Well I did a gravity sample today. I wasn't planning on checking on it for a while but after prompting from my brew partner that day we both did gravity samples. His portion with ECY01 is sitting at 1.008 and mine with ECY20 is sitting at 1.003. It has a nice sourness. Unless it hasn't gone through the ropy stage it's basically over at this point. His got super ropy he told me and now its getting normal again. Mine seems fairly normal viscosity at this point.

The flavor is nicely acidic and funky with a bitterness likely from the massive amount of the aged hops we used. It may be done fermenting in 4-5 months but it needs mucho more time to come into balance.

Where do you get the ECY Yeast from?

I was in Philly that weekend and took a stop over to Trenton and hit up Princeton Homebrew.

Well I bottled a little more than a year ago I think. I forget at this point. The primed gueuze portion is good but not as funky as I would like. It didn't get as dry as i hoped, but it is less than 1.003 at bottling. Its a good beer, but the culture left me wanting more. I bottled some as straight lambic no priming sugar. I opened one about two weeks ago and it has a ever so slight carbonation. Its very nice as well just lacks complexity compared to the much faster saison style brews ive done with 100% lambic bottle yeasts. I think I will do this again only difference is I will use my wild unknown yeast cocktail ive been using in other sours.

Interesting to hear your results. I just put my ECY20 barrel into stainless (so I could get at another barrel) and plan on letting it sit. It doesn't have the same depth as the Lambic blend, but that could be due to a different mash. I'll post tasting notes when I sit down with it.