Storm - Lambic Mead

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MarshmallowBlue

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I’ve seen a lot of people talking about wanting to try a (P)Lambic or sour mead of some kind. I’ve seen a lot of folks not go through with it. I know some have too, but I’ve decided to be the next one to take the leap.

Storm – Lambic Mead

-Starting Must-
~1.7 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
Water to one gallon
WYeast Lambic Blend (1 smack pack split between two 1 gallon batches)
Starting Gravity 1.065

-Secondary-
2 lbs strawberries per gallon
.25 lb maltodextrin per gallon (added 1 week after sacch starts ferment)

I broke the inner nutrient pack 3 hours before brewing. Each batch is identical with a gravity of 1.065. The pack says that you shouldn’t go far beyond 1.060 and considering how much I paid for the pack, I wasn’t going to test its limits; So I’ll be adding the strawberries in the secondary.

I’ll also be saving yeast sediment slurry from the primary in nippers for future sour generations.

Overnight; fermentation shows no signs. I panicked this morning, being used to dry yeasts and their quick-starts. Some facts to know for those interested:

-The liquid yeasts have longer lag phases.
-It is not recommended to make starters for Sour liquid yeasts, as it messes up the balance of bacteria cultures and yeast (regular liquid yeasts, you can make starters as large as you wish).
-The lag phase is even longer for sour yeast blends. From my research 3-8 days even.

*PS, if this gets De-Railed into a sour mead chat, I won’t mind; as I’ll be keeping a more strict log in my Blog.
 
Heading down the same path as you a lambic mead. Need to blend a lambic and an orange blossom mead I have to get an idea. The mad ferment. Has a post on a honey sour he did and post about lambic mead. Only concern I see is with no unfermentables (believe meads have none) there will be little to feed the Brett, pedio, lacto will work but the alcohol will hurt the lacto ( Berliner Weiss disc give it tol to 8%. I'm planning 30% orange blossom honey and 70% (60 pils/40 wheat ) with final abv ~7%. Will keep in touch as I brew mine will know in ~6 months the results. Love the sours.

Jon
 
Thanks to the extended lag phase and likely lower yeast count from my expired packet, after 3 days of lag (and probably more to come), I already may have the starting of pellicle formation. Its what looks like a very fine layer of dust floating on top (obviously not dust), and each of the two gallons have a tiny tiny white nugget floating in the center. I think the other one has the dust as well but I disrupt it when I move it down form the high shelf to look at it, I'll be moving it this evening so I don't have to move it to see.

But this is the beginning of many experiments for me into sour mead-making.

I also remember reading that even without the more complex sugar chains for the bacteria to eat, they also enjoy chomping on yeast cake.
 
Finally brewed mine.

5# 2 row
2# malted wheat
1# toriffed wheat

1 oz aged hops 60min
3 pounds orange blossom honey

Pitch us-05 and some of the yeast cake from my lambic(Belgian sour blend dregs from jolly pumpkin, drie font, boon). Was shooting for under 8% final alcohol. Made 3 gallons. I'll taste in 4 months to see where it's going.

Jon
 
Wouldn't that be more of a Honey Sour Ale than a mead? Since its only 1lb of honey per gallon competing with all those other fermentables? I won't complain, GO LAMBIC MEAD :mug:! Let's start a thing.

I actually haven't updated this thread in a bit. The gravity on mine has gone down to 1.030. I added 1/4 pound of Maltodextrin to each gallon to give the bugs some extra food. I also added 3 medium toast oak chips to each gallon. Supposedly it provides a sort of home-base for the bugs. It was a recommendation from the Wild Brewing section.
 
Fits more in the braggot catagory since my efficiency is low therefore half the fermentables are honey. So I guess not a mead but not an ale its a braggot. I just fear with the mead will be to sour and dry but you'll let us know in a few months.
Jon
 
I forgot all about efficiencies when it comes to all-grain style brewing. Right now I make extract beer and mead which both have 100% efficiency.

I like the really sour ones, worst case scenario I'll have to blend it and make a mead gueuze. I don't plan on touching these in terms of bottling until next April. A little under a year to follow the Long aging sour tradition.
 
Well you have to put unfermentable sugars. If not, the saccharomyces will eat all the sugar straight away because they are way faster (and more in number in the pack) that others. Maybe brett and lacto could eat a bit on their own, but not enough to create a real funky taste and sourness.

If you don't want to add malt, you can use straight maltodextrin. It's cheap and easy to find, the sacch won't touch it and leave it for the bugs, and that way you can control the sourness level.

Or caramelize for honey.
 
I wasn't trying to be harsh if that's how I came off. I actually didn't really figure in complex sugars until I read even more about sours and how they work. I'm going to bottle one of the gallons right before my wedding, and the second gallon 6 months later. This way I can have a new rotating Sour mead finished every 6 months.
 
HAHA! Here we go Kiddos. The bottom bubble doubled in size overnight. Sorry for the bad photography. Im standing on my toes leaning, and holding the camera with a flashlight in the other hand. I had to rely on Autofocus which can be exceptionally wonky. Enjoy!

IMG_1680_zps17be5935.jpg


IMG_1677_zps3efd48c0.jpg
 
Lambic mead update: There was a thin waxy pellicle in the carboy I pulled. Some of it retained from a slow pour. The taste is really cool at the moment. It is very very light in the body department, but the flavor complexity is starting to develop. It has a sour note to it. Nothing near where I want it, but its coming along, nothing too funky at the moment but I'd imagine that's to be expected since it's so young. So far so good though. I'll add strawberries to one gallon and more oak to the other, as well as more maltodextrin.
 
I've been rethinking of this idea of a lambic mead, over and over. The problem with it is that bacterias aren't so resistant to high level of ethanol, and low gravity meads aren't so interesting, in my opinion.

So an Idea I had would be a blend. A big +15% straight mead blended with a 6-7% dry mead, in wich I add maltodextrins and bugs, until I got the desired level of funkysourness. That way we could get a 12-13%abv sour mead.
 
If you add all bugs to the low grav batch you shouldn't need any malto-D. I use it because there is also yeast in mine. Sounds like a solid plan though.
 
If you add all bugs to the low grav batch you shouldn't need any malto-D. I use it because there is also yeast in mine. Sounds like a solid plan though.

Like it's been told in this thread, sacch is really faster than bugs, and honey is pretty much simple sugar, so nothing left for a great souring. Don't put any sacch could be a solution, but again, brett is faster than lacto, and it's all simple sugar easy to eat, it would be quick. And over that, an all brett fermentation is pretty clean in fact. To get funkyness and sourness, you need the bugs/bretts to be stressed, eating slowly long chains of sugar. That's my point of view.
 
As of 3+ months for my lambic mead, lacto had more presence than brett when they were both pitched from the same smack-pack. In the end I guess Malto-D won't hurt so there's not much point in arguing one way or the other. I look forward to hearing about your mead gueze.
 
you don't get brett funk from the brett eating sugars, you get it from brett eating the by-products of sacc. so you'll get more, and faster funk if you don't feed the brett at all. skip the malto-d.

this is why 100% brett beers taste clean: they have no sacc by-products to funk up.

more reading: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/understanding-brett-flavors-298943/
 
A good read indeed. What will the Lacto be able to eat though?

Edit: So this means I'm probably safe leaving that big pile of yeast on the bottom right? Or should I think about racking off it soon (At 3 months now).
 
I've been letting this one sit and sit. It's at 3.5 months now. One of the gallons has a mild pellicle, the other doesn't. I'm not concerned.

I'm still hesitant to bother with gravity readings since I don't want to infect my only hydrometer. It is however, about time to rack onto some new foods for the bugs, and off that mass of sludge (per advice on Mad Fermentationist to rack as normal until off sediment / trub (no trub in mead, so I usually go close to 3-4 months before first racking)). Both of them are pretty clear to this point,

One of the Gallons will be aged on some bourbon soaked light oak chips. And the other is going to get strawberries. I'll be saving the cake for later use because I payed big bucks for that yeast bug mix, and I want to see how it changes the characteristics. As of now it tastes similar to how it did before with only a bit more sourness and a chunk more funk in the back.
 
Well the twins got racked as well as a little makeover. Both of them got racked. One gallon got a good 2-2.5 pounds of strawberries. And as promised the other one got light bourbon soaked oak chips.

The strawberry one has been giving me issues. The yeast / bugs / whatever got really excited about the strawberries and i got Strawberry Lambic mead all over the closet. I had napkins down which was good. Whoever moves into my apartment next should have no trouble making anything with house yeast which is probably well cultured in my kitchen as well as my bedroom closet.

The oak chips gallon has full pellicle coverage, bubbles film and all (pictures coming soon) .

Pretty pumped it's almost half-way done! Assuming It's done late April.
 
9 Months in! > a Carbon post form the blog for the most part.

Tasting Updates! Took tastes of both the strawberry and traditional lambic meads. The traditional is definitely more where I want it to be than the strawberry. I may end up pitching a whole thing of cherries into it for kicks, since I plan on aging it another 6 months anyways. The traditional with bourbon light oak chips has a really good balance with a bit of funk, good body, and a really good hit of sour. I'm happy I'll be able to share it with my friends the day before my wedding, or day of, or both). I'm pretty pleased with the results thus far and I think I can see we will we a go for generation 2 Lambic meads in the near future. We both know that's why you're here. The next update will probably be at bottling time! Can you believe it?
 
Lambic Mead Bottled!
photo2_zps3a229685.jpg


I ended up getting eight 12oz bottles and one 750ml as well as a bit extra which I put in a glass and brought some in for friends at work.

After that I immediately pitched yeast/ bug slurry from Lambic 1 I had been saving in the fridge, directly into a new Lambic mead.
 
14 Months: The Strawberry Lambic mead is still aging in bulk. It will be bottled at 18 months so that every 6 months I'll have a new generation of Lambic Mead finished. Tasting Notes: Poured a small sample, it has a clear off-rose color and a faint aroma of stone fruit and strawberries. Not extraordinarily different than the standard Lambic mead, but it is different. I think what I'll do is add some mixed berries (about half a pound), and let those ferment out and clear before bottling to refresh some of those berry notes.
 
can you please share with us some of the highlights?

maybe what definitely doesn't work, so people don't waste time going down a dead end?

thanks!

In Short, the biggest lesson so far is don't make an all Brett mead over 1.075 without a very healthy starter. (Haven't tested one with a healthy starter yet.)

I'll work on getting a bulk of information on lambic, sour, and alternatively fermented soon. But it's going to take some more time.
 
I'm really interested in trying one of these. I've already got the wyeast blend smack pack. Just waiting for the holiday travel to calm down so I can do my SNA properly
 
I love this idea. So much so I started a gallon of my own lambic mead today.

A month in it's still bubbling away. I added dregs from a few great sours as I drank them. It smells amazing, I'm not sure how to describe it. I don't want to take any samples yet as I started with only one gallon. But all things point to awesome at this point.

Dregs:
Avery Raspberry Sour
Boom Island Oude Funk - If you live in the Twin Cities, BUY THIS BEER
Crooked Stave / Hawkshead Key Lime Tau (2π)
 
@MarshmallowBlue
I just started a 1 gal batch of your recipe here.
O.G. 1.065.
I used 0.1oz of oak cubes instead of chips. Cheap, non-varietal honey.
Trying to hold it between 66/67°F for now.

Planning to follow TOSNA 2.0, assuming high N requirement.
Except I already added the first addition... Hope that's fine.

If there's a lag time, should I delay the subsequent additions?

Do you degas/aerate once daily, considering that Brett might produce acetic acid?

I'm fairly new to mead making. If anyone has thoughts, please chime in!
 
@MarshmallowBlue
I just started a 1 gal batch of your recipe here.
O.G. 1.065.
I used 0.1oz of oak cubes instead of chips. Cheap, non-varietal honey.
Trying to hold it between 66/67°F for now.

Planning to follow TOSNA 2.0, assuming high N requirement.
Except I already added the first addition... Hope that's fine.

If there's a lag time, should I delay the subsequent additions?

Do you degas/aerate once daily, considering that Brett might produce acetic acid?

I'm fairly new to mead making. If anyone has thoughts, please chime in!

Do not degas or aerate. For the precise reason you mentioned.


If you want to learn more about sour meadmaking, I have a lot of information available on my site (Hivemind Mead). I Also have a book available on Ebay + Amazon. You can learn more about that here: http://hivemindmead.com/wild-mead-sour-mead-making-book/

You're fine with cubes vs chips.
Yeah if you get any lag, I would wait a bit before adding more nutrient.
Feel free to shoot me any more wild / sour mead questions or troubleshooting needs you run into.
 
What's a good way to add nutrient without degassing?

Also, how would you describe the level of sour taste for your sour meads (without added fruit)?

Thanks!
 
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If you mix your nutrient in liquid you can avoid the mead explosion from adding powder to an active ferment. I usually save a cup of must in a glass jar and mix my nutrients in that, adding a measured amount for each required addition. A small amount of water will accomplish the same goal if you have no saved must.
 
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