Beer Forum

Hi guys, hope all is well. In following a lambic recipe from Clone Brews I added fruit much, much earlier than is recommended according to other, more reputable sources I have since become aware of. Most sources suggest letting your lambic ferment for a year or so before adding fruit, after which you let it sit for 3 months to a year or more depending on the source. I, however, racked it to the secondary on top of the fruit and lambic yeast blend after fermenting with an ale yeast in the primary for 5 days as per Clone Brews instructions. Other than the fruit addition being a year or so early , everything seems to be going as it should. It has been a couple of months in the secondary (glass carboy w/oak bung) and the pellicle is forming nicely.

Does anyone know if there will be any detrimental effects of such an early fruit addition now that I have switched to a more accepted procedure? I am assuming I will probably lose much of the fruity aspect over time and may possibly have to add more fruit once the lambic is finished in order to punch up the fresh fruit flavor. Other than that, I don't know if I need to look out for anything else. Should I rack the beer off the fruit after a few months or just let it be until it completes? All comments, concerns, questions are welcome!

As a courtesy, I'll relay the email answer I received from experienced lambic brewer The Mad Fermentationist of http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/. If you are interested in lambics you should check out his blog...very informative. He reassured me that an early fruit addition will not have any detrimental effects on the lambic over time. The later addition gives the brewer an additional aspect of control, ie reserving especially good end products for straights and/or gueze, and the ability to split the final product to get both a straight and a fruit beer from a single fermentation. He said their should be no problem letting the beer sit on the fruit for the recommended lambic fermentation periods and that I will probably still have plenty of fruit flavor with the amount of fruit I added. If not, I can always add more in the usual manner.

Anywhoo, big relief. I thought I might be wasting my time on an expensive screw up but I guess I'm safe. Hope this helps someone out a little.

Andy wrote:As a courtesy, I'll relay the email answer I received from experienced lambic brewer The Mad Fermentationist of http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/. If you are interested in lambics you should check out his blog...very informative. He reassured me that an early fruit addition will not have any detrimental effects on the lambic over time. The later addition gives the brewer an additional aspect of control, ie reserving especially good end products for straights and/or gueze, and the ability to split the final product to get both a straight and a fruit beer from a single fermentation. He said their should be no problem letting the beer sit on the fruit for the recommended lambic fermentation periods and that I will probably still have plenty of fruit flavor with the amount of fruit I added. If not, I can always add more in the usual manner.

Anywhoo, big relief. I thought I might be wasting my time on an expensive screw up but I guess I'm safe. Hope this helps someone out a little.

the mad fermentationist is Mike T. (not sure how to spell his last name...Tonsmeire?). He is a real cool dude. He might even be a good guest to have on the session. He has been on basic brewing radio a couple of times. Anyway, feel free to email him questions. He is very nice and has lots of information because he does lots of experiments.