2011 Kriek Tasting Notes

The first Lambic I ever brewed was back in 2011.  After about 18 months in the fermenter, I transferred a gallon of it onto 1.4 lbs. of frozen and thawed sweet cherries.  It sat on the cherries for about 2 ½ years.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to doing something with some of the sours I have sitting in bulk in my cellar.  The gallon yielded 9 – 12 oz. bottles of Kriek.  It was a real treat.  The following are the tasting notes from the hydrometer sample that I pulled (which happened to be 1.003 after the original Lambic finished at 1.001.

 

Aroma: The aroma is all about the sour – a lactic aroma with hints of cherry

 

Appearance: Crystal clear with a light pink tint.  Hydrometer sample was still

 

Flavor: A punch of lactic sour hits you right in the face, with a bit of horse blanket in the background.  As it warms the cherry flavor comes forward in full force

 

Mouthfeel: a rather thin mouthfeel and completely absent of carbonation

 

Overall impression: Like a sour cherry pie, I think I’m really going to enjoy this once it carbonates.

2014 Lambic

The wife and kiddos went to Charlotte to visit family for the weekend, so I knew I needed to take advantage and do some brewing.  And, boy did I!  I brewed a Lambic, a Saison and a session IPA.

The first beer I brewed was a Lambic.  This is the third Lambic I have brewed.  The first version, back in 2011, was one dimensional – all sour with no funky complexity.  The 2013 version, I’ve bottled but I haven’t tasted yet.  This year I was able to get my hands on a vial of East Coast Yeast Bug Farm.  I pitched this along with a pint of the yeast cake from last year’s lambic (WLP655 Belgian Sour Mix).  I have high hopes for this one.

 

Brew Date: 8/8/2014

Beer Number: B36

Beer Name: Lambic 2014

Type: Lambic

Primary Fermenter: 6 gal. glass carboy (?? days)

Secondary Fermenter: n/a

Volume: 5.5 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.049

FG: ?

Expected IBU: 5

Expected SRM: 4

Expected Alcohol %: ?%

Ingredients:

4 lbs., 6.4 oz. Breis US 2 Row Malt
3 lbs., 8 oz. white wheat malt
1 lb., 1.1 oz. flaked wheat
.5 lb. rice hulls
7 g. Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) 60 min.
ECY01 BugFarm
1 qt. B32 2013 Lambic dregs
1.75 lbs. brown sugar

Step by Step Process:

ECY01 Yeast Starter (8/8/14)

1. Boiled @ 200g Pilsen DME in @2.0L water for 15 minutes
2. Transferred @ 1L to flask
3. Cooled and pitched bottle of ECY01 BugFarm
4. Covered with foil
5. No Kreusen appeard

Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher, double-crushed wheat
7. Heated 11.75 qts. strike water to @180F and poured into mash tun
8. Allowed tun temp. to settle to 170F
9. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @155F at top of mash
10. @30 min. temp had dropped to 153F
11. @55 min. Poured 0.9 gal. of near boiling water, which raised temp to 173F
12. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
13. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
14. While draining, fired burner and set heat on medium-low.
15. When empty, filled with 2.6 gals. of near boiling water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
16. When empty, filled with 2.6 gals. of 190F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
17. Collected a total of @ 7.6 gal. wort
18. Brought to a boil
19. Added 7g. Mt. Hood hops at 60 min.
20. Using wort chiller, cooled to below 100F in @ 20 minutes
21. Covered kettle and allowed to cool overnight (inside garage)
22. Gravity reading the next morning was 1.040 (target of 1.048)
23. Boiled 1 lb. 12 oz. brown sugar in 1 qt. of water and added to wort.
24. OG after sugar addition was 1.049
25. Transferred to sanitized carboy and pitched starter of ECY01 BugFarm and 1 quart of dregs from B32 2013 Lambic (harvested earlier in the day)
26. @ 24 hours, krausen was evident

Lambic 2013

My “annual” Lambic was the third beer in my triple-duty weekend.  This was the second time I had brewed a Lambic.  I was happy with the acidity in the first Lambic but the funk was lacking.  I transferred this directly onto the yeast/bug cake from the first Lambic and then also pitched a new vial of WLP655.  I’ve yet to taste it from the bottle, but the hydrometer sample was nicely acidic and there was a little more funk in the second attempt, but still not where I want it to be.

 

Brew Date: 4/27/2013

Beer Number: B32

Beer Name: Lambic 2013

Type: Lambic

Primary Fermenter: 6 gal. glass carboy (469 days)

Secondary Fermenter: n/a

Volume: 5.5 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.049

FG: 1.002

Expected IBU: 7

Expected SRM: 4

Expected Alcohol %: 6.17%

Calories: 157

Ingredients:

4 lbs., 3.5 oz. Weyerman Pilsner Malt

4 lbs., 11 oz. wheat malt

1 lb. flaked wheat

.5 lb. rice hulls

7 g. Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) 90 min.

WLP 655 – Lambic blend

Step by Step Process:

Wort

1. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher, double-crushed wheat
2. Heated 16 qts. strike water to @168F and poured into mash tun
3. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @150F at top of mash
4. mashed @ 1 hrs,
5. 2 gallons of boiling water was added to mash
6. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
7. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
8. While draining, fired burner and set heat on medium.
9. When empty, filled with 3.5 gals. of 190F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
10. When empty, filled with 3.5 gals. of 190F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
11. Collected a total of @ 10.5 gal. wort
12. Brought to a boil
13. Added 7g. Mt. Hood hops at 90 min.
14. Using wort chiller, cooled to below 100F in @ 15 minutes
15. Covered kettle and allowed to cool overnight (inside garage)
16. Transferred to carboy on top of yeast/bacteria cake from B21 Lambic 2011 that had been bottled/kegged earlier in day
17. @ 48 hours, krausen was evident
18. @4 days krausen had risen through airlock
19. Airlock was removed, cleaned, sanitized and replaced back on carboy

Packaging (8/9/14)

20. Bottled 13 – 12 oz. bottles with 2 Muntons carbonation tabs per bottle
21. Transferred the remaining @4.5 gal. to a sanitized/CO2-purged keg

Lambic Tasting at 10 Months

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Carroll, Keith D Normal Carroll, Keith D 2 35 2012-09-27T20:29:00Z 2012-09-27T20:29:00Z 1 128 733 Philip Morris USA 6 1 860 14.00 <![endif]

While I was taking gravity readings and bottling and kegging the other weekend, I decided to take a gravity ready and try a sample of the Lambic that was brewed last October and still sits in primary. This one is not nearly as complex as I want it. After this sampling, I pitched some additional brett to try to turn up the funk factor in this beer.

Aroma: mostly acid on the nose with a slight touch of funk; needs much more funk

Appearance: crystal clear, pale yellow, still

Flavor: sweet and sour; I still detect a touch of malt sweetness although this has attenuated down to 1.001; sweetness is offset by a sour acidic taste; the lactic acid is definitely the main character; no funk or complexity to speak of

Mouthfeel: light body, fully attenuated, still

Overall impression: acidity is refreshing, but this beer really needs some brett complexity

Lambic Update - 5 Months

Over the weekend I was taking a hydrometer reading of the lambic (it’s down to 1.004) that I brewed last November and I decided to do a tasting. This lambic is not very complex, but hopefully complexity will come with age. I’ll probably pitch vials of Brett-C and the Brett brux Trois that comes out next month to introduce some more funk. Unfortunately, Richmond is a desert when it comes to finding commercial mixed-fermentation beers. Once in a while I might find a bottle from New Belgium or The Bruery with brett, but they are few and far between and beers with lactobacillus are unheard of.

Aroma: decidedly sour with hints of citrus; no vinegar character; a tiny hint of leather; no hop aroma or diacetyl

Appearance: pale yellow; mostly clear but with a slight haze; small bits of floating pellicle; still – no head or carbonation

Flavor: slightly sour – nowhere near as sour as indicated in the aroma; a touch of leather; citrusy; no hop bitterness or flavor; no diacetyl

Mouthfeel: still; thin mouthfeel; slightly slick on the palate; no warmth or astringency

Overall Impression: lacking complexity; needs more time for the Brett to take over and create complexity; would like more sourness – will probably need to blend with a Berliner Weisse to increase the acid bite

Triple Barrel – part 1: Berliner Weisse

The first weekend in August, my wife took my three little angels to visit their cousins in Charlotte, so I had the weekend to brew. I brewed a Berliner Weisse on Friday night and a Bohemian Pilsner and Belgian IPA on Saturday.

On Friday I planned to play cards, so if I was going to brew, it had to be pretty quick. I’d been toying with doing some sour beers and I decided to do a short boil Berliner Weisse. Berliner Weisse is a German low gravity wheat beer fermented with a combination of yeast and lactobacillus bacteria. The brew session generated a number of firsts:
1. I actually willingly allowed bacteria into my brewery (what? Am I crazy?)
2. I only did a 15 minute boil – with Pilsner malt no less (am I trying to have a DMS bomb?)
3. I did my first decoction – I only did a single decoction, but it didn’t seem to be a very big deal. I think this will definitely be a tool to add to my arsenal every time I need to do a step mash.
The fermentation regimen can be done one of three ways:
1. Ferment out with the yeast and then add the bugs;
2. Add the bacteria and yeast at the same time
3. Start with the lactobacillus and add the yeast later
I decided to start with the lacto about 5 days before pitching the yeast to give the souring a good head start.

As of two months after brewing, every tasting so far has seemed more funky/bretty than sour. I’ve read that BWs hit their stride about 8 months after brewing, so only time will tell if this gets to where I want it.