To blend or not to blend

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luis.salas

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Well, so this is my situation, and I came to you for advice.

Two years ago I brewed a lambic with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. My plan was to brew another one the next year and so on, but many things happened and it wasn't possible.

Now for me it's impossible to get more of that yeast, so I'm quite insecure of what to do next. I was thinking in some options:

A) To bottle everything and having 5 gallons of lambic for the next years

B) To take some to make something like a kriek (lets say, 1,5 gallons). With the other 3,5 gallons I could:
B.1) Mix them with fresh wort of a clean belgian ale. Bacteria from the old beer should do their magic with the new beer and have, again, 5 gallons of on going lambic. I think I could get something like a solera efect doing this.​
B.2) Bottle it, blended with fresh belgian ale, to have something similar to an oude gueuze.​

It's my very first time with this beers so I'm really lost. I would appreciate your opinions!
 
Well, so this is my situation, and I came to you for advice.

Two years ago I brewed a lambic with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. My plan was to brew another one the next year and so on, but many things happened and it wasn't possible.

Now for me it's impossible to get more of that yeast, so I'm quite insecure of what to do next. I was thinking in some options:

A) To bottle everything and having 5 gallons of lambic for the next years

B) To take some to make something like a kriek (lets say, 1,5 gallons). With the other 3,5 gallons I could:
B.1) Mix them with fresh wort of a clean belgian ale. Bacteria from the old beer should do their magic with the new beer and have, again, 5 gallons of on going lambic. I think I could get something like a solera efect doing this.​
B.2) Bottle it, blended with fresh belgian ale, to have something similar to an oude gueuze.​

It's my very first time with this beers so I'm really lost. I would appreciate your opinions!

Personally, I like your solera idea. Get yourself 3 versions and blend from there.

If that doesn't work for you my second vote is for B1.

Good luck!
 
Personally, I like your solera idea. Get yourself 3 versions and blend from there.
I like your way of thinking. One day...one day.

And I also agree, B1, but with fruit. Or fruit the lambic, I've done it and it is decent. Or maybe one of everything and see which you prefer.

Or, do like I also did; brew three years in a row with different yeasts each year, or on the cake of the previous. Both ways turned out good. Unfortunately I will have to start from scratch after moving.

Good luck.
 
One of the only uses I have found for my glass carboys is aging my sours. When it's time to keg and/or bottle, I can put another beer on top of the cake in the carboy. I can get multiple years going and have a great time. You can blend as you see fit, and maybe only take half a carboy for drinking/blending and then top it off with new beer, solera-style.

I have one sour I call $h1t Show. The base is our house sour culture from the grapes we grow. As I fill fermenters, sometimes, there are leftovers; in they go (pale ale, stout, whatevs). I make a cider or a wine, sometimes there's fruit at the bottom; in it goes. I'm tired of drinking a beer, there's only a few pints left in the keg, yep, you guessed it, in it goes. Every year is different and somehow they always taste amazing. But never repeatable.

Beer is fun.
 
But never repeatable.
I also do this, and have done it up to 2bbl size. It is certainly fun, and makes interesting beer, but as you say it is not repeatable.

The only repeatability that I can get from this method is by using the cake only a couple times. First batch doesn't count, in my mind, as I'm using it as a "starter" though the beer that it makes was the goal, the overreaching goal is to take care of the cake under the beer. You can, of course, isolate whatever you want out of the slurry and wash it as you go, but just doing it our way does not bode for repeating something. Not that it is a bad thing, just different.
 
B.1) Mix them with fresh wort of a clean belgian ale. Bacteria from the old beer should do their magic with the new beer and have, again, 5 gallons of on going lambic. I think I could get something like a solera efect doing this.

I'm planning on starting a semi-solera brew similar to this in a 6.5 gal glass siphonless BMB. I just picked up that same Wyeast 3278 yesterday. I was planning on using the spigot to bottle 2 a month and just top it off every 3 months or so with a fresh wort from whatever I happen to be making at the time. The nonreplicable sour sounds fun to me.

Yea, every month might be too frequent to take some, but I'm impatient so this sounds like a compromise to me. I drink one now and save one so at the end of the year I have 12 bottles to taste the progression.
 
Monthly withdrawals are no issue if you have enough beer to begin with. I'd enjoy doing what you propose, but think 6 gallons would limit your sample size to negligible amounts. Though you could enjoy a pint every month without too much detriment I would imagine.

I have also done what you propose, but on a larger scale. Usually in a bbl or half bbl size (I didn't have as many vessels when I tried it), with my ultimate goal being: collecting enough different sized wooden barrels to produce a balsamico. Eventually I didn't like the character from the subsequent pulls so I abandoned the project, and I have since moved and sold all my barrels so I'm unable to try again. Not that I have time to do it again, yet.

Go ahead with your plan, I like the idea and think you'll get some interesting beer from it. I did.
 
I considered doing a larger quantity, but any non-plastic fermenter over 6.5 gallons is expensive. I got my glass BMB at Northern Brewer on sale for $50. I was looking at a Chapman 7gal or 14gal stainless fermenter but that's $150-$170 which for me is a lot. Maybe if I like the outcome, I'll move it to something bigger in the future. I generally only brew 1gal batches and some 3gal so to me a 6gal batch sounds like something big.
 
Not sure how big you want to go, but Spiegel makes some nice, strong, ferm vessels. I have a couple. They are great. I haven't used them for sours, but if I did I'd probably only use them for sours. There are also IBC totes that many sour makers use (plastic or stainless), the plastic ones can be had for ~200 and they are 250-3XX gallons (I haven't looked at them in a long time though, and am unsure of all the sizes). Chase (prairie) does, or did, use them for his sours. Again, I don't brew as much as I used to at home so I may be out of the loop on some of this. But it was factual as the time I knew it.

If you are brewing small anyway, 6.5 should be good.

I don't know anyone aside from B3 that carries Spiegel at decent prices though. There are a ton of wine ferm vessels that you can use too. They always seemed cheaper for some reason. I'd recommend a place for that, but that trashy tramp at St. Pats ruined what was once a decent supplier of them. Old gossip there!!!
 
You know I was just looking at the 60L Spiegel fermenter yesterday, seemed like a decent deal. I think I'll start with the 6.5 and see how it goes. Maybe after the first few draws if I think it's something I'll continue long term I might get a Spiegel. Then it can be a true solera with multiple vessels.
 
You can get some custom coils made to act as a ferm chiller. The lids are easy to adapt to some posts as well. Plus you can buy extras is you want, or need.

I have a couple chillers I had for mine. Fit well and work just as good. I don't brew as much in a single batch as I used to, sold my Alpha couple years ago, so I use my SS vessels for all my brewing (I don't use them for sours at the moment) as I am brewing clean until I get a feel for the new area we just moved up to. Plus I'd like to get some land to move all my hobby stuff out to for more room at home, but until then...
 
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