I just had my first lambic

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mixedbrewer

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And wow! It is great. I am drinking a Cuvee Rene Gueuze beer. I am wondering if it is just as simple as starting this type of beer from the junk in the bottom of the bottle since it is "alive". There is all sorts of stringy stuff, yeast, and other bits settled at the bottom. I dont know much about lambics, but this one has me interested.
 
You can definitely start from the junk in the bottom--it's usually called cultivating dregs.

Avoid anything from Lindeman's that isn't labelled "Cuvee Rene"--they're pasteurized (and sweetened with artificial sweeteners), so you won't get any useful bugs from them.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/06/harvesting-sour-beer-bottle-dregs.html

Look for something from Cantillon next if you can find it. Or Hanssen's or Drei Fonteinen.
 
Great news! Thanks for the link. I think I will experiment with it in a 1 gallon glass growler. I will cook up a wort and pitch yeast and what I have left in the bottle. Then I should have a bunch left over after that for a 5 gallon batch the next time. This should be interesting.
 
I was actually going to ask about a similar topic - I tried and I think succeeded at culturing the dregs from a bottle of Lindeman's framboise ... yes the americanized sugar laden version of lambic from Lindeman's. Anyway, I was going to ask what exactly I might have there in that starter - a mixture of simple ale yeast with the wild cultures in Belgium? I figure it's either a wild culture from Belgium, or a wild culture from my kitchen :) Can/should I use this to ferment my first attempt at a lambic style beer?
 
Great news! Thanks for the link. I think I will experiment with it in a 1 gallon glass growler. I will cook up a wort and pitch yeast and what I have left in the bottle. Then I should have a bunch left over after that for a 5 gallon batch the next time. This should be interesting.

Let us know in a year or so how that turns out.

Lambics take a long time to ferment out due to the slow nature of some of the important critters -- pedio and brett -- which won't even start to show up in significant quantities until you are several months in.
 
I was actually going to ask about a similar topic - I tried and I think succeeded at culturing the dregs from a bottle of Lindeman's framboise ... yes the americanized sugar laden version of lambic from Lindeman's. Anyway, I was going to ask what exactly I might have there in that starter - a mixture of simple ale yeast with the wild cultures in Belgium? I figure it's either a wild culture from Belgium, or a wild culture from my kitchen :) Can/should I use this to ferment my first attempt at a lambic style beer?

Its from your kitchen, the framboise is pasteurized, if there was anything viable in it they would turn into bottle grenades with all that sugar in it

give a small amount of wort a shot with your culture though, it may turn out decent
 
I was actually going to ask about a similar topic - I tried and I think succeeded at culturing the dregs from a bottle of Lindeman's framboise ... yes the americanized sugar laden version of lambic from Lindeman's. Anyway, I was going to ask what exactly I might have there in that starter - a mixture of simple ale yeast with the wild cultures in Belgium? I figure it's either a wild culture from Belgium, or a wild culture from my kitchen :) Can/should I use this to ferment my first attempt at a lambic style beer?

Whatever you have isn't from the bottle. The sweetened (non-Cuvee Rene) Lindemans are all pasteurized, so there's nothing in there to culture up.
 
A year? I cant do it in maybe 6 months?

At 1-year, you'll have so-called "young" lambic.

The Cuvee Rene gueuze that you had is made by blending about 1/3 3-year aged lambic with 2/3 young lambic, then allowing it to bottle condition for another 6 months; to duplicate that you'd need at least 3 1/2 years.

Oldsock's done a lot of sour brews; his timelines are often along these lines:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2008/09/brewing-lambic-20.html
(notes from his brew day, on Sep 5, 2008)
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/11/kriek-framboise-imperial-lambic.html
(notes from his first tasting of that beer, Nov 25, 2010)

You can do some sours in a shorter period of time; I've done a sour saison in 5 months or so. It's a much less aggressive sourness to it, but it worked out pretty well. But for a gueuze you're really looking at a year minimum, maybe more.
 
Ok thanks... I will have to do some more reading about sour beers. It is very interesting now that I have tasted one and actually liked it. Where should I start looking if I am looking to make one in months instead of years? Saison? Is that the only one?
 
SummerH : you keep mentioning that the sweet Lindeman's Lambics are pasturized. Are they pasturized(heat)? or stablized (chemical preservative)?

And then are they force carbonated? This would seem to be the only way to do it.
 
SummerH : you keep mentioning that the sweet Lindeman's Lambics are pasturized. Are they pasturized(heat)? or stablized (chemical preservative)?

And then are they force carbonated? This would seem to be the only way to do it.

They're heat pasteurized. http://www.lindemans.be/start/geuze/en mentions that the regular gueuze is pasteurized while the Cuvee Rene is not; the translation's unclear, but the same is also true of their other stuff (e.g. the Cuvee Rene Kriek is unpasteurized; the regular Kriek is pasteurized).

I'm not sure if they force carb or not. It's also possible to let a bottle carb naturally and then pasteurize in the bottle, but I'd guess force carbing is more practical.
 
Ok thanks... I will have to do some more reading about sour beers. It is very interesting now that I have tasted one and actually liked it. Where should I start looking if I am looking to make one in months instead of years? Saison? Is that the only one?

Some sours can be done in months but the souring process and a lot of the flavors come with age. Trying to rush the process will give you a less complex, if not less sour beer. You may or may not enjoy a rushed product as much as one you let sit for an extended period of time.

Because souring typically involves consuming the residual sugars regular brewing yeast won't consume you end up with a very long fermentation process where CO2 is slowly being produced. If you bottle a beer that still has more fermentation to be completed you can end up with bottle bombs instead of delicious beer. If you can keg, that may be less of a problem but you are doing yourself an injustice to drink it too early.
 
Ok thanks... I will have to do some more reading about sour beers. It is very interesting now that I have tasted one and actually liked it. Where should I start looking if I am looking to make one in months instead of years? Saison? Is that the only one?

You can do a sour mash, use some acid malt, add lacto, and such to cut corners and get a pretty sour beer, but it's unlikely to be too appealing (straight acidity without any of the other complexities from the bugs and brett isn't really what you want).

Or you can go for a younger, more mellow sour and expect ahead of time that it'll be a sour undertone rather than a true sour beer. That's what my saison was, but there's no reason you couldn't do that with any other style that you want.

I have heard that Jolly Pumpkin dregs are relatively fast and aggressive souring agents compared to other cultures, but I've not tried them myself. I'm actually going to give that a shot soon--I have one Lost Abbey Red Poppy-ish beer going (with Lost Abbey dregs), and I'm about to start a Supplication-y thing with the Russian River bugs. Both of those are on 18-24 month schedules.

After that, I'm going to do yet a third brown ale with cherries, with the dregs of a couple of Jolly Pumpkins in it (as well as S-04 or similar). That one will go to secondary for only a month or so before I add cherries, and I plan on putting it on tap after 6 months or so unless it's really atrocious then. Basically I'm using that and the saison "mini-sours" (along with regular brews) to distract me so that I don't mess with the real stuff before it's ready.
 
That's true, you can sour mash and sort of fake your way into it. In the fall I made a generic wheat beer and did a sour mash on a portion of the beer. I added cherries and let it sit for a few months. I ended up getting a lacto infection, which isn't the worst thing in the world to happen. I ended up bottling it and just tried one over the weekend. It is five months old. Very dry, somewhat sour and tart. It is very one dimensional, unlike the cuve renee. No brett character, which I think is what makes the lambic flavor meld and shine more than the souring bacteria. My fiance said it reminded her of the Cantillon kriek but with less cherry. I can accept that as a victory for a five month old fake lambic.

I am also experimenting with a fake oud bruin that should take 5-6 months. Fairly similar concept. I am relying on a sour mash to replace the souring bacteria but I am fermenting a portion with brett instead of sacc. I'll see how that turns out in a few months.

Neither are going to be as good as a beer made in the traditional process with proper aging. As far as gueuze goes, since the flavor is created by the aging process it's pretty hard to fake that. I'm experimenting with these sort of short circuit processes to mix up my pipeline but I also have a lambic solera I started last month that will be a very long term project that won't get opened up for at least a year.
 
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