Lambic (BOS, 3rd BOS and Two Golds)

Good points guys.

I will say that first bottling (14 months in carboy, then 1+ years in the bottle) of this recipe has not changed too much since I bottled it. It is only lightly carbonated (about 1.2 volumes maybe).

From the BJCP Guidelines 17D:
Aroma: A decidedly sour/acidic aroma is often dominant in young examples, but may be more subdued with age as it blends with aromas described as barnyard, earthy, goaty, hay, horsey, and horse blanket.
Flavor: Young examples are often noticeably sour and/or lactic, but aging can bring this character more in balance with the malt, wheat and barnyard characteristics. Fruity flavors are simpler in young lambics and more complex in the older examples, where they are reminiscent of apples or other light fruits, rhubarb, or honey.

Perhaps these judges are looking for more horse blanket/goaty complexity? If that's the case, I won't change anything because I don't like too much goat barn in my beers.

Along the lines of rhoadsrage's comment, it drinks much more one dimensional (read: tart and low Brett) when it is cold that when it is drank at 50* (my favorite temp for this one). Also, there was nothing marked on the cover sheet as far as 1 of xx in the flight for the Champion of the Pint.

An update now that the NHC results are posted.

The first bottling of this recipe has advanced to the second round of NHC for the second straight year. Last year, it took 1st in Chicago going to Mini-BOS at Nationals. This year it took 3rd in KC.

This may have been addressed already in the thread, but which model of Vittles Vault container do you use? I'm looking for scale up my lambic production and would like a larger fermenter.

Thanks!

AmandaK said:

Vittles Vault.

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Pretty darn cheap.

Zippox said:

Pretty darn cheap.

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Thanks!

I was taking a sample of a cream ale I have going under my stairs and I peered further in the room at the second batch of AmandaK's recipe and there is a crazy pellicle on the top. I'll try and post a picture of it tonight.

The bottom most picture is the first batch of this recipe and then I made a second batch to go on top of that cake which are the first three photos.

Curious how the second round has far more pellicle

Zippox said:

The bottom most picture is the first batch of this recipe and then I made a second batch to go on top of that cake which are the first three photos.

Curious how the second round has far more pellicle

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Several factors go into this. Oxygen exposure (pitching directly on cake), amount of yeastie beasties, etc.

I'll see if I can't post pictures of my pellicles - they're pretty hairy! :rockin:

Hopefully one of the factors wasn't the fact that one of them held change for 10+ years. Lets hope I don't get through 1.5 years of waiting to find out it tastes like like quarters and dimes. --I did clean the hell out of it and sanitized it like there was no tomorrow.

I have a Kreik I made that is 14 months old...and I made it with extract and maltodextrin...at about six months I added half pints of dark cherry and tart cherry extract...it re-fermented. I also periodically pitched dregs whenever I finished drinking a bottle of sours. I would bring them home and pitch. It turned out pretty damn good...so good in fact I won't waste sending in to judging...I find those contests are very subjective anyway...I chuckle...cause if they had DME back in the day I assure you they would be making it that way as well...

Pellicle after 3 months in bucket, going to give it another month before racking.

Here's an 11 month gravity sample of my Flemish Red with grapes. Nice bracing sourness, light but noticeable Brett funk, quite dry, slightly bitter. I racked it off the grapes this week. I think it is almost there.

Zippox said:

Hopefully one of the factors wasn't the fact that one of them held change for 10+ years. Lets hope I don't get through 1.5 years of waiting to find out it tastes like like quarters and dimes. --I did clean the hell out of it and sanitized it like there was no tomorrow.

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Pellicles are all different in size, shape, gnarlyness, etc. You're probably just fine if you cleaned it well.

AmandaK said:

Pellicles are all different in size, shape, gnarlyness, etc. You're probably just fine if you cleaned it well.

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Yeah, I have 3 buckets going, all brewed the same day. 2 with ECY01 and one with ECY 02. They all have pellices, but the picture I posted was of the gnarliest one (one of the ECY 01 buckets), the others have a good one going, but to a lesser extent than the bucket I posted the pic of.

hi amanda, although i am new to brewing i have quickly become a big fan of yours and would like to try a lambic. actually 5 lambics (!). someone earlier in this post gave me the idea of buying those new little 1 gallon glass carboys with airlock (hey they're only $7 each!) and splitting up the batch into 5. that way i could have 5 different flavors to try (forgot to mention i will be doing fruit lambics). so a few simple noob questions if i may. is there a rule of thumb on how much fruit to add (x lbs per x gallons)? do you have to rack onto the fruit in a secondary (which would be an extra 5 carboys to buy) or can you add the fruit to the primary? and finally when do you recommend adding the fruit? thanx!

itsratso said:

is there a rule of thumb on how much fruit to add (x lbs per x gallons)?

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This depends on the fruit and the base beer. I have used 2lb/gallon of tart cherries to good effect in a Flanders Red. This rate may be too much in a blond ale and too little in a stout. On the other hand, if you were using white peaches or kiwis, this rate might not be enough. The Mad Fermentationist has much more information on that topic if you have the patience to dig through the blog. There are so many variations of sour beer and fruit - he's done way more than I have so I'll just point you over there.

itsratso said:

do you have to rack onto the fruit in a secondary (which would be an extra 5 carboys to buy) or can you add the fruit to the primary?

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I would rack to the secondary (or tertiary) instead of throwing fruit on top of a sour beer for one main reason - oxygen pickup/exposure. After my initial plastic bucket, I minimize oxygen contact as much as possible. I didn't come this far to make vinegar.

itsratso said:

when do you recommend adding the fruit?

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After the primary fermentation is done - that's my practice. I find that gives me the aromatics that I'm looking for. Adding during the primary seems to encourage the fruit aromas to be driven off with fermentation. From there I leave it on fruit until I need it for an event or I get around to bottling. Sometimes this is 6 months, other times it is a year. I have read that traditional lambic blenders/breweries keep the beer on cherries until there is nothing but the pits left. I don't get that crazy, but I definitely do not put a timetable on my beers. The beers will let me know when they are done. This is why I recommend tasting and smelling throughout the entire brewing process and through fermentation.

Update on my beers. They were all brewed/pitched the same day, so surprised at the variance. First two pics are a lambic with ECY01, and the 3rd is a Flanders with ECY02. The first bucket smells incredibly sour, the other two smell mildly sour. We'll see how thru are in a year, going to rack to secondary this month.

I actually bottled my first batch based on this/BYO recipe on Saturday. I'll give it a couple months and open my first in October before a competition I'll be entering some things in. The last time I brewed a sour, it had an odd cereal grain off flavor after bottling for a couple months. Not sure what caused it, but we'll see if the same happens with this one too.

Can't wait to whip up my next batch!

I brewed 5gal of this up this morning. I am going to ferment primary with US05 and then pitch WLP 653 Lambicus along with some Jolly Pumpkin a Dregs in secondary. The secondary will be racked onto 10 pounds of wild blackberries. I'll post pictures as this progresses. Cheers!

Just brewed 10 gallons of this and can't wait to see how this goes. I Don't have Carboys to transfer this into so it'll probably sit in buckets longer than AmandaK's version of the lambic.

Brewing_on_the_Internet said:

Just brewed 10 gallons of this and can't wait to see how this goes. I Don't have Carboys to transfer this into so it'll probably sit in buckets longer than AmandaK's version of the lambic.

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I would be very careful about oxygen exposure. Buckets leach a lot more oxygen than carboys.

From Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow:

Wine barrel 8.5 O2 cc/L/year
Glass Carboy (depending on stopper) 0.10 - 17 O2 cc/L/year
Homebrew Bucket 220 cc/L/year

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Using a bucket for the entirely of fermentation/aging is not recommended.

AmandaK said:

I would be very careful about oxygen exposure. Buckets leach a lot more oxygen than carboys.

From Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow:


Using a bucket for the entirely of fermentation/aging is not recommended.

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Thanks for replying AmandaK and Congratulations on your awards.

I have 2 Curtec barrels with very thick walls. They are much thicker than a regular bucket. The seal on the lid also seams better. when you tighten or lossen the lid even slighly, it moves the airlock water. I plan to not open the containers for the duration of fermentation and aging. I'll check these in one year.

Do the plastic oxygen permeability charts we see online and in Wild Brews take thickness into account? Thicker wooden barrels are less permeable than thin ones. I can't speak on plastics since I'm not a materials engineer. I would think that it would.

When you unseal the top on a carboy to pour in dregs, take a hydrometer reading/tasting, or transfer to secondary, don't you introduce more oxygen than would leak through the walls of a bucket in years if that bucket hasn't been opened and is left alone? Oxygen in the head space is different than oxygen in through the walls but I don't know how effect would differ.

Update. Racked to secondary, added oak dowel, 10# of blackberry.

How would you compare the taste of this lambic made with the wyeast lambic blend to commonly available commercial examples?

Not as complex, but that can be added in by tossing the dregs from unpasteurized bottles into the secondary.

Picked up everything to make this for one of my bday brews! all grain though, but honestly, it was super cheap, wish i had room for a huge fermenter, i would have made numerous gallons!

urbanmyth said:

Not as complex, but that can be added in by tossing the dregs from unpasteurized bottles into the secondary.

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I don't have access to much but I do have some bottles of Oude Geuze by Boon and Lindemans Cuvee Rene. I can use those.

I havn't seen Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, Russian River or Jolly Pumpkin where I'm at. Everyone is always talking about those and I wish I could get my hands on some. Sad Day

I entered a version I did of this recipe into a competition that was judged yesterday and it scored a 37 and 3rd place in a combined sours category. It was brewed in June 2012, bottled August 2012. I used Wyeast Lambic plus the dregs from Cantillon Fou Foune and Rose de Gambrinus. I also used some Sauvignon blanc grape concentrate about 2/3 of the way through the fermentation period.

I'm pretty happy with how it scored for such a young lambic!

Edit: A little more information - I did the entire length of the fermentation in a better bottle.

What kind of comments did you receive?

Brewing_on_the_Internet said:

What kind of comments did you receive?

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I missed the awards ceremony, so I haven't got my sheets back yet. I'll report back once I get them in the mail. I also medal-ed 3rd place in the Specialty category with a 100% Brett porter, so it was a pretty decent competition for me.

Congratulations on the medals.

This sounds pretty great. I want to give it a shot. How much bottle dregs would I need? At the time of initial fermentation would dregs from say 2 beers be enough? How many bottles should I add when I transfer over to my 5 gal carboy after a month or so?

Thanks a lot!


Also, I suppose I should dedicate a bucket to sour brewing as I don't want cross contamination. Have any of you used the same equipment and seen issues?

MrMista said:

This sounds pretty great. I want to give it a shot. How much bottle dregs would I need? At the time of initial fermentation would dregs from say 2 beers be enough? How many bottles should I add when I transfer over to my 5 gal carboy after a month or so?

Thanks a lot!


Also, I suppose I should dedicate a bucket to sour brewing as I don't want cross contamination. Have any of you used the same equipment and seen issues?

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2 or 3 beers would be the right amount. For sours you want to underpitch so don't make a yeast starter. You get better flavors for sours when the yeast works hard to get going.

I personally did one wyeast lambic smack-pack with the dregs of Lindeman's Cuvee Rene.

When you transfer, it isn't crucial to add more dregs. I would say only add more dregs if it is ones from a different sour beer. It would add to the complexity.

If you are using a plastic bucket then yes you will not want to make a normal beer in that ever again. Buckets are like 10 bucks so don't risk using it for anything but sours.

Will give this a shot sometime! Sounds delicious!

Jeeze, just went out and bought the materials for this one... haha

I made a six gallon batch yesterday. Exactly the same as the last 10 gallon batch I made but with Bug country.
Pitched 1/5 of the vial and fermentation was very active by evening. Used the rest to make starters.

1. Has anyone done this All Grain? Is AG not recommended for Lambics?

2. Is 10 gallons the starting volume or the ending volume of boil?

3. Never did a sour before, how do you rack from the secondary and not transfer the mess on top?

stompbox said:

1. Has anyone done this All Grain? Is AG not recommended for Lambics?

2. Is 10 gallons the starting volume or the ending volume of boil?

3. Never did a sour before, how do you rack from the secondary and not transfer the mess on top?

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1. There are all grain Lambic recipes in the recipes section on the site. This one happens to be extract.

2. For extract recipes if you can make it a full boil then that's good, but it's just fine to boil as much as you can then top up to 10 gallons when you put it into your buckets/carbons. I for example boiled 3 gallons then topped up to 5 gallons in the bucket. I did this twice to get 10 gallons in the end.

3. If your Lambic does end up getting a good layer on the top, all you need to do is poke your racking cane through the layer and rack from underneath it.

In reply to stopbox just two posts ago. Here is someone who has done what they believe to be the closest all-grain alternative.

PintoBean said:

Yeah, geez guys. Drunk Monk is a HUGE competition, I scored a 40 on an American Wheat this year and didn't even place! Over 850 entries in the competiton. I'd say the OP's beer is probably pretty darn tasty based on the consistency of her awards (even if she is a cards fan; go cubs!).

On a side note, I brewed up something inspired by the OP's recipe yesterday. Did all-grain, 30% Wheat, 70% 2-Row (would have used pilsner but won a sack of 2-row at a competition 2 weeks ago and it was pre-milled so want to use it up quick). Put 2lbs of maltodextrin in the boil for the bugs to chew on. I pitched ECY01 Bug Farm. I made 15 gallons. I also did a mini-mash on the side with flaked maize, munich, special b, aromatic, flaked wheat, and a little acidulated and blended with 5 gallons of the lambic base to get a Flanders Red. Pitched ECY02 Flemish Ale in that one. Flanders is on the left, lambics are on the right. These were my gravity samples I pulled before I closed up my buckets.

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Just brewed this today--my first ever sour in nearly 40 batches. Only exceptions are I used 1/2oz 2 year old EKG pellets (10 IBU's) and pitched a vial of ECY01 Bugfarm. O.G. spot on at 1.044. Going to do 1 month in a better bottle, then another 11+ months in glass. Thanks again for such a great recipe! I have a vial of ECY20 that I may use for a similar beer once I rack this one...

Now? The waiting game...