Lindeman's Framboise

[StefanM47]

I need some feedback ASAP
I'm trying to make a framboise for my girlfriend. It's the only kind of beer she'll drink.


3 gal batch

2lb Wheat Malt Extract (DME)
1.5lb Light Malt Extract (DME)
0.5 lb Crystal 20L
0.5 lb Crystal 40L
0.5 lb crystal 50-60L
1 lb CaraPils
1 lb Honey Malt
1 oz Black Patent
1 oz Roasted Barley
1/2 oz Smoked Malt
2 Ounces Czech Saaz (Bittering)
1 whirlfloc tablet
.5 Teaspoon Dried Elderberries
46oz Oregon Seedless Raspberry Concentrate
1.5 Teaspoons Pectic Enzyme
1 US-05 yeast
1 Vial Wyeast 3278 Belgian Limbic Blend
.75cups priming sugar
5oz Raspberry Beer Flavoring

METHOD:

Place crushed Grains in 2 gallon water and steep at 150 degrees for 20 minutes.
Remove spent grains and sparge the grains with 1 gallons of 150 degree water. Add Malt Extract and Bittering Hops. Boil for 1 hour.
Add Irish Moss and Elderberries 45 minutes into the boil.
Cool wort under 70 degrees and pitch US-05.
Primary-ferment at 65-72 degrees for 7 days.
Transfer beer on top of raspberry concentrate and pectic enzyme. Pitch Limbic yeast blend into secondary.
Secondary-ferment an additional 6 months at temperatures between 65 and 72 degrees.
Prime, bottle, and add Raspberry Beer Flavoring.
Age in bottle for 30 to 90 days.

 

[reed1911]

For lambics you need to think in the 12-18 month range. They take a long time to make and get the flavor developed. I highly recommend the book Wild Brews it will take you on the whole journey on how to make them. Other than that your schedule looks okay, I would wait to add the fruit until after the first 9 months or so though.

 

[StefanM47]

I'll give it a read! Thanks for your input!
-Stefan

 

[reed1911]

Forgot to add, if you can find them, use aged hops. They still have the anti-bacterial quality but lack the bitter flavor. I have some I effectively aged myself but you can find them for sale as well. Hopefully someone will chime in with where to get them.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Aged hops are the norm when doing spontaneous fermentations, but probably aren't necessary when adding commercial mixes/dregs. Someone in the lambic forum might have better knowledge on the topic, though.

As a short answer, I would echo that lambic beers take between 1-3 years to ferment, and making one is not very much like other beers. It's a whole different skill set. Think long and hard before trying this approach, and be ready to blend or dump batches.

Lindemann's is sweetened, so it's not really like other lambic beers anyway. As a much faster maturing option, why not try for a raspberry wheat beer with a sour mash? That could be ready in a couple months and would most likely be very agreeable to her. I would get a 1-2 gallon sour mash going, brew a regular batch of American type wheat beer, add the sour mash into the boil, and then ferment out with a standard American or English yeast. Hit it with some raspberry puree in the secondary, then bottle when it's done fermenting. Tasty and easy.

 

[ACbrewer]

Lindemann's is sweetened.

THIS It will effectively bar you from making it with out a lot of thought. As I understand it, they pasturize and force carb it, thus they end up with the sweetend flavor but no fermentation.

So to finish it as sweet, you can either kill and keg with sugar OR you can sweeten and pasturize and pray against bottle bombs. There is a 'stove top pasturizing link' thread in the forum that describs how a guy does it for cider and avoids bottle bombs. Long and short, he brings a pot of water to 190F, turns off the heat, adds his bottles in slowly, and then lets them sit for 10 mins, removes the bottles carfully (hot bottles) and heats his water back up to 190 and repeats until he has done all his bottles.

Or you can use other sugars like lactose, but that often adds a milk like flavor to the beer (or so I've heard)

 

[Beernik]

Try the Cuvee Rene. That with fruit is more likely what you'll end up with.

You'll probably be okay with Saaz, but you want to keep the IBUs around 3 - 7.

I agree with allowing up to 12 months. My pLambic when through a ropy phase around 6 - 8 months and tasted like vomit.

What is the smoked malt, roasted barley, and black patent for? Those strike me as unusual for lambic.

 

[StefanM47]

Hey y'all! I really appreciate the advice. I haven't had time to make this recipe yet.
Since then I've had an idea. Do you think making a framboise with golden raspberries is a good idea? I figure if I make the malt bill lighter colored and use golden berries I could get a really cool color.
I'd need your help with this idea, please give me as much input as possible! Thanks!

 

[reed1911]

No reason not to that I can see, I agree you will have a different color and may find that without the red raspberry color you are able to fool the brain into tasting more complex flavors.

 

[chad_]

If you want to decrease the time it takes for something like a framboise, you could do a sour mashed berliner wiess and add raspberries. It won't have the complexity of a framboise but it is shorter and easier to make.

However, I would prefer a nice aged framboise. One thing to watch out for, when you add the raspberry beer flavoring 1) make sure it either has no sugar or you know how much sugar it has or you could get bottle bombs and 2) it made add a pour artificial flavoring and natural flavoring may be better.

Hope it all goes well!

 

[StefanM47]

Really appreciate everyone's advice! I'll keep you updated. I plan on making a real aged framboise. So the updates will be slow... Haha

 

[StefanM47]

So here's the updated recipe:



Framboise:


3 gal batch

2lbs Wheat DME
2lbs Crystal 10L
1lbs CaraPils
.5lbs Honey Malt

2 Ounces Czech Saaz (Bittering)

1 whirlfloc tablet 10 min before flameout
.5 Teaspoon Dried Elderberries

1 Pack US-05 yeast

5lbs golden raspberries
1.5tsp Pectic Enzyme

1 Pack Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend

1/3 cups priming sugar(honey?)
Raspberry essence

METHOD:

Place crushed Grains in 2 gallon water and steep at 160F for 20 minutes.
Sparge the grains with 1.5Gal of water.
Add Malt Extract and Bittering Hops. Boil for 1 hour.
Add Irish Moss and Elderberries 55 minutes into the boil.
Cool wort under 70 degrees and pitch US-05.
Primary-ferment at 65-72 degrees for 7 days.
Transfer beer on top of raspberry concentrate and pectic enzyme. Pitch Limbic yeast blend into secondary.
Secondary-ferment an additional 6 months at temperatures between 65 and 72 degrees.
Prime, add Raspberry flavoring, and bottle.
Age in bottle for 30 to 90 days.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Unless those hops are aged, you might have a problem with some of your bugs. IBU levels are way too high here. Really, though, lambics are such a different beast than every other type of beer, it's worth reading "Wild Brews" if you want to get into making lambics. Post this in the lamib section of the forum, too. Others will have a better idea if extract, crystal malts, lack of unmalted wheat, not pitching bugs in primary, and other differences are going to be problems or not.

 

[Beernik]

For lambics, you want to keep the IBUs under 10. With a normal beer, you offset sweetness with bitterness. With lambic, you offset sweetness with sourness. Even without aged hops, you should be okay if you keep the IBUs low. That's what I did with my first.

The reason for the IBU = 10 threshold is the IBUs will start to inhibit the Lacto in your lambic blend if they go higher.

 

[StefanM47]

So just one ounce of Saaz then?

 

[StefanM47]

This look any better?

Framboise:


3 gal batch

2lbs Wheat DME
2lbs Crystal 10L
1lbs CaraFoam
.5lbs Honey Malt

1 Ounces Czech Saaz (Bittering)

1 whirlfloc tablet 10 min before flameout

1 American ale smack pack

5lbs golden raspberries
1tsp Pectic Enzyme

1 Pack Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend

1/3 cups priming sugar(honey?)
Raspberry essence

METHOD:

Place crushed Grains in 2 gallon water and steep at 160F for 30 minutes.
Sparge the grains with 1.5Gal of water.
Add Malt Extract and Bittering Hops. Boil for 1 hour.
Add Irish Moss 50 minutes into the boil.
Cool wort under 70 degrees and pitch Ale yeast
Primary-ferment at 65-70 degrees for 7 days.
Transfer beer on top of half raspberry puree and pectic enzyme. Pitch Limbic yeast blend into secondary.
Secondary-ferment an additional 6 months at temperatures between 65 and 70 degrees.
Tertiary- rack onto other half of berries and enzyme. Ferment out.
Prime, add Raspberry flavoring, and bottle.
Age in bottle for 30 to 90 days.

 

[chad_]

Seems good however, you don't need to pitch the ale yeast. The lambic blend already has ale yeast in it in good proportion to the other bugs in it. Another problem that I see is the length of time for this. You'll only be letting it sit for 7 months or so, but it really should be 12+ months. That being said you can't really tell it when to be done. It might be fine after 7 months, but you have to taste it along the way to see where it is at and then from there tell for yourself when it's done.

 

[GuldTuborg]

The "standard knowledge" is that unblended lambics are generally ready for bottling after their second summer has passed. Typically after another 6-12 months in the bottle, they're ready to consume. More age is rarely a bad thing with these kinds of beers, though.

 

[itsratso]

i have gone over this with the king of lambics, the mad fermentationist, and you are not going to get a lindemann's type framboise this way. you will get a good sour rasberry lambic. but you need to find a way to kill the bugs way early to preserve the sweetness that lindy's gets. he mentions this in the part about adding fruit:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/11/brewing-sour-beer-at-home.html

 

[StefanM47]

Incredible article! Thank you.
So, I've done some research and from what I've read my best option is to kill (stun) the yeast using Cambden or something high in sulfates after its done fermenting, add some sweetener, and then keg it. How does that sound? Or do you have a better way to kill the yeast and add sweetness? I'm up for all suggestions!

 

[itsratso]

i don't remember where i saw this but i did see another thread where they did use campden and it did work. they fully admitted that it was risky though and that they were taking a chance on just creating a bunch of bombs so ymmv. if it were me, and i plan on doing this, i would just make a traditional sour fruit lambic.

 

[StefanM47]

So here's my plan with bottling:
When it's ready to be "bottled" I'm going to kill (stun) the yeast with potassium sorbate or some kind of sulfite. I'm going to back sweeten the batch with honey or more raspberries or something, then keg it and force carbonate it. Then perhaps from there put it in bottles.

Does this sound like a solid technique?

 

[robertjohnson]

How's this coming along? I've been trying to figure out how to make a quick-version of the framboise without having to add the sour bugs. We're taking different approaches, obviously, but I thought I'd ask. Here's my thread, if you're interested: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/quick-framboise-lindemanns-227700/

A summary of a few things I found with my first go-around that might be helpful to you:

1. Raspberries make a really tart beer, even without sour bugs! (At least the Oregon Fruit Puree does.) I couldn't believe how tart the batch was just by adding the puree. Looks like you'll have a lot of unfermentables left over to provide some balancing sweetness, though the bugs might eat through most of it. Sounds like you've got a plan for backsweetening. (It'll take a lot to get close to Lindeman's.)

2. I wasn't happy with Oregon Fruit Puree. I should have trusted my instincts about the light pink slurry before I poured it into the fermenter. My guess is that they're cooked for pasteurization. Not much aromatics, but a lot of tartness. I ended up adding raspberry extract to compensate. (Warning: a little goes a long way! 2 tbsp in a 5 gallon batch would probably be enough. The whole 5 ounces might just ruin it.) I'm going to try frozen raspberries from Costco after flash-thawing them in the microwave...I'll let you know how that goes.

3. I have no idea how Lindemann's looks deep crimson. Straight raspberry juice isn't even that color. Yours probably won't look that way either.

 

[StefanM47]

So as of right now I don't have much to say other than it smells great! Haha I've still got a few months left of aging and them a few weeks of bottle conditioning.
I ended up using 5lbs of freshly picked Alaskan yellow raspberries (salmon berries) instead of the traditional crimson raspberries. I pitched 2.5lbs fresh, after mashing them and mixing them with pectin of course, into the secondary with the lambic bugs. Then I pitched the other 2.5lbs (with the same prep procedure) six months after the secondary. That was just in February. So I'm going to wait until late August before sweetening and bottling. After 5 or so days of conditioning for carbonation (I choose 5 days instead of 2 weeks because I'm going to be back sweetening a bit) I'm going to pasteurize the bottles as to stop the residual yeast from creating a bunch of tasty bombs.
I'll post pictures and give a full detailed update this fall when I crack open the first bottle!

 

[StefanM47]

Here's a link to the pasteurization method I mentioned:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

I've never done it, but I know people who have and they've succeeded.