Lambic Primary / Fruit Addition

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Gregg

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I tried to search but I can't seem to find anything that really answers my question so I thought I would give posting a try.

I just brewed up a batch of NB's Dawson's Kriek extract kit. It's sitting in the primary and fermenting. My question is really, once the primary is done, should I rack onto the fruit into a secondary or just add the fruit into the primary? Like I said I've tried to search, but I'm confused about this...

Any thoughts or tips would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!
 
A friend and I did this exact batch. We let it ferment for a couple of months in the primary then racked onto the fruit in secondary.
 
Thanks for the reply. How long was a couple of months, or did you rack to secondary when the gravity became stable?
Is your batch still sitting or was it done, how did it turn out?
 
A couple was about 2 months... just long enough for all of the trub and a good amount of the yeast to flocc out.

It has been in secondary for a month or so, it will probably stay there for a year or so.
 
In Wild Brewing (where most of my knowledge on lambics has come from) Jeff Sparrow indicates 2 things:

1) Fruit additions should be done after like a year, and then the beer should age for another length of time (months to years).
*I think there are differences in practice, but this seems to be the traditional method.
*One could probably look at the relative life cycles of the organisms in a lambic and come up with a perfectly logical assessment/reason for this tradition. (I think I'll do that sometime.)

2) A key difference between Lambics and Flanders Acid Ales is that Lambics stay in the primary fermenter (barrel) the whole time, while Flanders beers are fermented in one vessel then transferred to barrels for secondary fermentation. The dead yeast provides food for the particular organisms active in lambic fermentation.
*Note that a lambic won't make it to the primary fermenter until like 24 hours after boiling; it sits in a coolship to get inoculated.
*During that time, a great deal of the trub will settle out. You likely transferred to your primary fermented rather quickly. So the contents of your primary fermented will look a lot different than Cantillon's (i.e. you have more crud).


So my recommendation (although there are more experienced pLambic makers active on this forum) in this case would be:
1. Transfer to secondary soon so you still have some yeast that make the trip and ultimately croak at the bottom of your carboy.
2. Add the fruit after 6 months to a year and drink after something like 1-2 years.
 
What I was going to was ferment on the primary for a month, then rack to a secondary with the fruit and just let it sit.....Seems to be inline with your recommendation number 1.
 
What I was going to was ferment on the primary for a month, then rack to a secondary with the fruit and just let it sit.....Seems to be inline with your recommendation number 1.

I have had the best luck adding the fruit to sour beers after it has already aged for a considerable period of time 6-12 months. This has several big advantages, but the reason for it traditionally was that it would allow the brewer/blender to take samples and select which barrels would be best with fruit and which would be best left alone. Adding fruit later on also allows you to feed the sugars to the wild yeast and bacteria, not the primary Saccharomyces strain, this boosts acidity and fermentation complexity.

In general I like to bottle half of a sour beer after a year and add fruit to the rest. This gives me two different beers, and allows me to learn what different base beers taste like with and without fruit.

Hope that helps good luck.
 
when adding lambic/sours to secondary on fruit, do you usually have a violent refermentation? since brett should be working more in the latter stages and sacch has slowed the pace, is there still a krausen from which you might need a blow off tube if there isn't much head space? or do you really only get a pellicle at that point? wild brews says that refermentation is not as vigorous and does not require notable headspace, but i've read about fruit additions with crazy refermentation and explosions, violent blow offs, etc.

i ask because i just reracked 3 gal of a 10 month sour @ 1.004 onto 7lbs cherries and left about 1 gal space in a SS 5 gal corny. this is the oldest of my sours and don't know what to expect except refermentation and complexity. this won't be touched again till next year so the cherries can completely breakdown.
 
when adding lambic/sours to secondary on fruit, do you usually have a violent refermentation? since brett should be working more in the latter stages and sacch has slowed the pace, is there still a krausen from which you might need a blow off tube if there isn't much head space? or do you really only get a pellicle at that point? wild brews says that refermentation is not as vigorous and does not require notable headspace, but i've read about fruit additions with crazy refermentation and explosions, violent blow offs, etc.

i ask because i just reracked 3 gal of a 10 month sour @ 1.004 onto 7lbs cherries and left about 1 gal space in a SS 5 gal corny. this is the oldest of my sours and don't know what to expect except refermentation and complexity. this won't be touched again till next year so the cherries can completely breakdown.

You should be fine, I've never gotten more than a big pellicle when racking an aged sour onto fruit. Brett can produce blowoff if you are talking about a 100% Brett ferment with a really healthy starter, but there just aren't enough really active cells in an aged sour to get that sort of action from fruit.
 
Sorry to thread jack, but I don't feel like making a new topic when this one is rather current.

I added small amount of fruit at the beginning of fermentation (based on some results that said to pitch it early) however I wasn't sure if this was correct so I only added a portion of it. Would it be ok to add more fruit after a few (6-12) months or will this wreck any developing penicile? I hope I didn't screw up my kriek, but I am hoping this is like anything else in brewing and won't really be a big deal. Anyone know what happens if you add fruit too early?
 
spontaneours-lambic-ferment.jpg
Anyone know what happens if you add fruit too early?
saccharomyces will be the only thing to eat and ferment the fruit in early additions. you wait until the latter stages of fermentation because after about 8-12 months the Brettanomyces will be the only thing remaining and doing almost all of the work.

in my sour i added fruit early which is fine since it adds more sugars and will raise the alcohol. i just added more fruit which will add to more development of complex flavors due to brett being much more active now that 10 months has passed.

based on the above chart the growth of yeasties is:
saccharomyces>pedioccus>brettanomyces
 
spontaneours-lambic-ferment.jpg

saccharomyces will be the only thing to eat and ferment the fruit in early additions. you wait until the latter stages of fermentation because after about 8-12 months the Brettanomyces will be the only thing remaining and doing almost all of the work.

in my sour i added fruit early which is fine since it adds more sugars and will raise the alcohol. i just added more fruit which will add to more development of complex flavors due to brett being much more active now that 10 months has passed.

based on the above chart the growth of yeasties is:
saccharomyces>pedioccus>brettanomyces


So I should be ok since I am planning on blending it with another batch of lambic and wasn't very high abv yet? I guess lesson learned. At least its not that big of a deal, just more of a waste as far as flavor contributions. Learning about wild brewing is like relearning brewing except there is minimal info on it really. :tank:

I would LOVE to pick Oldsock/Mad Fermentist's brain.
 
does the concensus think its still better to add fruit to a scondary even if it's a 100% brett beer? if it's a recipe w/ zero sacch & all brett, why would there be a lag time in big brett production and utilization of the fruit? seems like you'd be jumping ahead in time based on the timeline. the only worry i have is that the fruit could contain some kinda nasty that might infect prior to the brett getting ahold of the wort and dominating. should i add the remaining yeast i have saved from a brett b & l batch to make sure the yeast population is better established?

i'm doing a cranberry lambic today and am gonna add 2lb dried cranberries soaking in beajolais & the quart starter of WL brett lambicus. the cranberries aren't completely covered in wine which requires them to be turned occasionally, plus they have been soaking for only 24 hours which is prob too little to disinfect in any way. i'll add more cranberries in the future if needed. snow days rock:rockin:

edit: i did add the leftover yeast dregs of the brett L & B from a previous batch which i collected from the secondary. between the brett L quart starter and the leftover yeast i collected the batch is fermenting right along 24 hours later. seriously though, without adding any sacch or pedioccus, the brett is going full strenght which takes out the 8 month waiting time of letting the other two (sacch & pedio) do their work prior to the brett. is this a bad assumption or does this theory hold water?
 
Would it be OK to just add the fruit to the primary after a year or so, instead of racking the lambic to a secondary with the fruit in?
 
Would it be OK to just add the fruit to the primary after a year or so, instead of racking the lambic to a secondary with the fruit in?

Assuming you had enough head space for the fruit and renewed fermentation, I don't see any major issues.
 
Would oxygenation be a concern with this? I guess a vigorous reactivity on of fermentation would expel any oxygen but I am wondering since I considered doing the same thing with a beer I have going. Thanks
 
Assuming you had enough head space for the fruit and renewed fermentation, I don't see any major issues.

Thanks!

...

Do you guys try to pasteurize the fruit before adding it? Or just dump it right in? Raspberries in this case..
 

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