My first lambic

Hey guys, I'm a first time poster but long time lurker / brewer.

I decided to make my first lambic recently and wanted to share it!

Brewed on 7/29:
3lbs LME Wheat
3lbs DME Pilsen
1oz Hallertau
60 minute boil for all of the above and pitched Wyeast 3278 lambic blend.

Today, 9/2, I added about 13lbs of tart cherries. I started by draining out the water from the cans and adding the cherries into a sanitized pitcher. I then dumped the cherries right into the primary. I wasn't concerned about saving the yeast and I had a good idea how to avoid too exposing too much oxygen. I pumped CO2 into the carboy as I dumped in the cherries through a funnel (which took forever, they essentially had to go in 1 at a time).

The pics show how little head room I have in a 6 gallon carboy. I'm not terribly thrilled about it but we'll see how it goes. I'll probably thief out a pint or two next week to both add some more head room and taste / measure progress.

Quality control approves:

Your cat seems to like, so I'm betting it will be purrfect.

Added the cherries way too early but there's nothing you can do about it this time.

Cool I am looking to do something very close to this except all grain very soon. Did you taste prior to adding. Cherries?

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Added the cherries way too early but there's nothing you can do about it this time.

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I might have gotten impatient, but the SG was already pretty low (1.012 at 3 weeks) and at time of adding the cherries there was already a nice acidic aroma. Time will tell, I suppose. What would be the differences between a lambic aged 1 year adding cherries at 6 months and an exact same lambic aged 1 year adding cherries after 1 month? I would think the longer the cherries are in the lambic, the less sweetness you'll have but more cherry taste/cherry tartness and aroma. Thoughts?

drawdy10 said:

Cool I am looking to do something very close to this except all grain very soon. Did you taste prior to adding. Cherries?

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Yes they were cherries. And no I didn't taste, only checked the aroma (a nice, healthy acid smell was present at 5 weeks). I tasted at 3 weeks and it was a little sweet and just a hint of finishing sour with no acid aroma.

Hate to say it man but I think you're rushing this along way too quickly. You should wait a MINIMUM of 6 months before adding fruit. It should also be done when the beer tastes ready. The fruit flavor will fade with time and I can almost promise the base isn't there yet.

Good news is you can always add more cherries.

I wait a year before even thinking about fruit. You know, let the beer tell you what fruit it needs (if any). Lambics are a weird thing... some could work well with cherries, sometimes raspberries are better and sometimes they really just don't need any fruit at all.

Just my $0.02.

weremichael said:

your cat seems to like, so i'm betting it will be purrfect.

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lol

I'll probably pull out a little to test in a few months or so. I want to taste how the flavors change over time. But if I have to add more cherries later on its no big deal. Here's a pic of her churning away.

I figured I'd update this thread since this beer had a big weekend!

Nothing changed with this beer than what's above. My next steps were bottling it on 5/7/14 to a little under 2 volumes of CO2 and tossing in some champagne yeast for good measure.

This past weekend, almost 3 years since I brewed this beer, my kriek won Best Of Show in The Brew Hut's Annual Homebrew Competition scoring a 45/50! I can post the tasting notes if anyone is interested (after I pick them up this weekend).

jselk said:

I figured I'd update this thread since this beer had a big weekend!

Nothing changed with this beer than what's above. My next steps were bottling it on 5/7/14 to a little under 2 volumes of CO2 and tossing in some champagne yeast for good measure.

This past weekend, almost 3 years since I brewed this beer, my kriek won Best Of Show in The Brew Hut's Annual Homebrew Competition scoring a 45/50! I can post the tasting notes if anyone is interested (after I pick them up this weekend).

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Dude congrats that's awesome. Did u end up adding more cherries?

505-Brewer said:

Dude congrats that's awesome. Did u end up adding more cherries?

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Nope! Just the original 13lbs!

Congratulations! looks delicious!