framboise

[wezil]

I go high with mine around 156F. This give the wort some longer chain sugars that Brett. and bacteria that can eat that the Sac. yeast cannot.

Brad

[ggltd]

Wezil: That makes a lot of sense- I wasn't thinking in terms of bugs as Jamil would say....... I will follow your advise.

Thanks,
Gary

[foomench]

I usually make kriek once a year when the fresh cherries come in, but since last year's batch was five barrels with a local brewery instead of five gallons, I made a five gallon batch of frambozen at home instead. I used my same basic recipe and it came out pretty good, but not quite as strong in the fruit flavor as I would have liked. So I talked to someone at Liefmans that gave me a lot of good advice. I'll pass on a bit of that as well as my own.

First, I say five gallons, but really I've always tried to max out a 6 or 6.5 gallon container for this brew, because you end up losing a fair amount to the fruit sludge. I'm lucky to end up with 5 gallons. Maybe some year I'll use the Fermentator, but I haven't done so yet. The flip side of this is that I usually put my carboy or bucket in a box with a trash can liner, because I regularly get an active fermentation that sometimes spews out some of the fruit. I worry about any sort of tube or airlock clogging, so now it's just sanitized foil on top of the carboy. One year with a bucket I had the entire lid blow off. Oooops.

For kriek, I've used between 12 and 15# of cherries. For the frambrozen I used about 12.

For cherries, the longer you let the beer sit on the fruit, the more cherry flavor will develop. I try for six months or more. Liefmans blends a small amount of fresh beer along with one year old and a some two year old.

For raspberries, time is not your friend. The yeast and other bugs can get at that fruit pretty quickly. After three months, the flavor will fade. This was my mistake.

I prime with 1 and 1/4 cups of corn sugar to get higher carbonation.

-Eric

[ggltd]

Well I started my lambic Friday night around 7:30 and finished the mash run off around 11:30. Brought it in the house, wrapped it in a sleeping bag (started at 120 deg.) and let it sour for 17 hrs.- boy did it stink a bit. Did a 90 min. boil ( more stink) and currently in the fermenter at 70 deg. I tasted it when I did the SG- very sweet obviously from all the good fermentables but I could taste the sour. The question is did I sour it enough, or should I have added some stinky bugs when I put the raw grain in? what a great experiment....

I think Sunday I will transfer 3 gallons and add the home grown raspberries. The other 2 gallons I will leave for a straight lambic or Geuze depending on how sour it is. I guess the back up is to still get some stinky bugs and add them if it doesn't taste right when I transfer.

[Mylo]

With all due respect - this abbreviated Lambic cannot be anything close. The thing that you are missing is the most important part - the Brett and the Pedio that are responsible for most of the funk and barnyard flavors.

This might work for a Berliner Weiss, but I doubt that this could produce a lambic that will blow away anyone that has come to love the real deal.


Mylo

[timothyt]

By the way, I just stumbled across this topic here, and I am the author of the recipe above that was originally posted on the BrewBoard, and I am interested to see it making the rounds. I am also curious to hear of people's experiences with it, good or bad.

I made this recipe in 2005, I think, and the stuff is still excellent (I still have about 1/2 dozen bottles). Also, it has a lot of very complex flavors that have developed over time--almost a vague chocolate undertone. And as for time & raspberries, it still tastes very strongly of them.

With respect to Mylo's note below, all I can say is that the combination does I think develop some pedo in the souring stage, and secondly, it was never meant to exactly match a true lambic, but to be lambic-ISH. And it is. In fact, I would put a bottle of this up against any store-bought framboise I have had. I think it is the high-temp ferment with that yeast that helps matters. The only distinct taste missing, I think, is the "peppery" flavor sometimes present in lambics.

In any case, I didn't want to infect my brew equipment, nor did I want to wait for years, and it is a good quick-and-dirty recipe; I might end up brewing another batch soon, and can report back if any one is interested.

--TT

[seanhagerty]

I am interested in this.

Never done a sour beer, but have tried a few and I am thinking I will have to brew one soon.

Sean