Oak Barrel Lambic Project

[interoma]

Hi guys!

So this is going to be my first attempt to brew the famous and delicious Lambic style beer and I would really appreciate your help!

My plan is to brew 5 gallons, let it age for a year in an oak barrel and then transfer 2.5 gallons to a carboy and add fresh raspberries. The remaining 2.5 will be transferend to another carboy but no fruit will be added.

1) I'm still deciding if to go with an extract brew or a single infusion all-grain mash as I don't have the equipment to do a 3 stage decoition.

Extract Recipe

1.5 kg of extra light malt extract
1.5 kg of wheat extract
0.2 kg of Maltodextrin or Carapils
0.2 Caramalt
0.1 Dark Crystal

All Grain Recipe

3 kg of Pilsner
1 kg of Vienna
0.2 Carapils
0.2 Caramalt
0.1 Dark Crystal

Ferment with: Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic

2) I'm planning on fermenting and aging my beer in a 5 gallon NEW oak barrel that I bought this spring.

To remove the excess tannins and taste from the barrel I plan on filling it up and soaking it several times with hot water and cheap beer. Do you think this could work?

Do you think a glass carboy would be a better idea. I heard that oak barrels may let in too much O2 and make the beer taste like vinegar. But I really like the idea of aging my beer in a barrel! :rockin:

3) I'm going to cool the wort, transfer it to the barrel and then directly add the yeast. I'm going to leave to beer on the yeast cake for the whole time or at least a year.

4) I plan on adding to the wort, throughout the inital fermentation and aging, yeast collected from other bottled beers, mainly Cantillon and 3fontain.

What do you think? Please feel free to change stuff up!

Thank in advance!

Cheers from Rome!

 

[dcp27]

1) even if u had the equipment for it, a 3-stage decoction is entirely not necessary for a lambic

2) sounds like a waste of a new barrel to me. I'd put a few beers thru it first and actually get some use out of it first. The first beer or 2 is going ot need very short aging, like a week for the first and maybe a month for #2. I probably would not age a beer in a 5G barrel for a year anyway due to the excessive evap and oxygen, but you can certainly try

3) don't do that, you're going to get such poor yield. ferment first then rack in to reduce headspace, otherwise you're going to have nowhere near 5G to split in a year.

4) definitely do that

 

[tobbias]

you will over oak your lambic with new barrel for a year. you could run wine or high gravity beers thru your barrel for a few years then make it a lambic barrel.

 

[lousbrews]

Totally agree with above posters. Get some mileage out of it first before dedicating it to souring. Alternatively you can get a used barrel which would probably need less non soured brews through it to be sure you get less of the oak character if there is much left.

As far as a 5 gallon barrel just plan ahead and use a base beer that you typically keep in house and sour that. That way you can just have a bit extra after a brew day and top off with that.

 

[MileHighBrewer]

Lambics are pilsner and wheat. That's it. 60/40 to 70/30