Kriek Problems

[Boonedoggle]

My first try at a lambic was 5 gal of NB's Extract kit of Dawson's Kriek, recipe below. The beer is kegged and has little to no taste, but does have a good cherry, semi-tart smell.

3 lbs Wheat DME
3 lbs Pilsen DME
1 oz Hersbrucker for 60 min

Wyeast 3278 Lambic Blend

OG: 1.053

Primary for 2 weeks, then racked to secondary on 2 cans of Vitner Harvest cherry puree FG: 1.016

Kegged after almost 5 months in secondary with a FG: 1.01

Fermentation occurred at a steady 67 degrees and I remember seeing a minimal pellicle, nothing to write home about.

Again, the beer is kegged, fully carbonated, and has little to no taste, but does have a good cherry, slight tart smell. With minimal taste, is this a drain pour or do I have options to release the pressure and restart fermentation in the keg until Spring to get more flavor?

 

[Agate]

I brewed the same kit a couple years ago. The real issue is that blend doesn't give you much sourness until you've dumped a second batch of wort on the yeast cake, and the directions don't tell you to leave it long enough. 1.010 is really too high of a gravity to bottle or keg, it should drop much lower. Mine took a year to get tart, and another 6 months to get sour.

At this point, I'd probably make a strongly acidic beer with lacto, no hops, and a highly attenuative sacch strain. Blend it with your kegged batch, maybe add some fresh tart cherries, and give it a few more months in the keg or in a carboy. Blending is a wonderful way to correct issues with sours, provided you have no off flavors. The brett character will get stronger the longer you age it.

 

[menotu]

Im in a similar boat OP. Made same kit, racked to secondary after a month and has been sitting on raspberries (swapped them for the cherries) for about 7 months. Its got a nice sour to it but zero else going on. I think im going to blend it with a hefe i have in a bucket add some dregs and let it sit for another 6 months.

 

[Boonedoggle]

I do have a Yeast Bay vial of Farmhouse Sour on hand I could use for this very purpose. With a blend of Sacch and Lacto and attenuation of 80-90%, this sounds perfect. I'll use this with my house saison recipe and blend when it hits the right notes.

 

[Agate]

Sounds like a plan! That's also a good suggestion that menotu had to add dregs.. At 1.010, there's plenty of room for brett and pedio to do some work. JP dregs will certainly up the complexity fairly quickly.

 

[Boonedoggle]

In lieu of making another base beer to blend, would anyone recommend adding tart cherry concentrate and a lacto/sacch yeast blend?

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

I found that Wyeast Lambic Blend didn't start to get good until 11-14 months.

 

[BGBC]

In lieu of making another base beer to blend, would anyone recommend adding tart cherry concentrate and a lacto/sacch yeast blend?

I would add some bottle dregs (JP or other sours you like) before adding another commercial yeast blend at this point