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Lambic Digest #0304
From postmaster at longs.lance.colostate.edu Sat Mar 19 03:24:05 1994
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Subject: Lambic Digest #304 (March 19, 1994)
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 00:30:14 -0700
Lambic Digest #304 Sat 19 March 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: More Liefmans (Jim Busch)
The New Lindeman's Gueuze (Martin Lodahl)
Who crapped? (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583)
Scuba dat Liefmans, Rodenbach Yeast (C.R. Saikley)
Well, here I goooooo......... (Teddy Winstead)
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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 10:24:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Busch <busch at daacdev1.stx.com>
Subject: Re: More Liefmans
Al writes about my Liefmans harvest:
>
> Aha! I suspect that your chances of getting lactobacillus would have
> been much higher if you had been able somehow to bottom crop. Recall
> that Lactobacillus is an anerobe (facultative or not, I don't recall --
> from my own personal experience, I would guess that Pediococcus is
> facultative, since it appears to create a pellicle but only when
> exposed to air). I recall from George Fix's article in the 1992
> AHA Conference Proceedings, that he recommends drawing samples from
> the *BOTTOM* of the fermenter, just above the trub/yeast cake, when
> testing for the presence of Lactos and Pedios. This would imply
> that the highest concentration of these critters would be at the
> bottom of the fermenter and that's where we would like to get
> samples from if we could. Comments?
Well, does this mean that we believe that the lactobacillus that would
have been in the fermenter is different from any other lacto? Im no
expert here, just curious. Wouldnt the key be to use the same top
fermenting yeast, and add your own lacto strain, or do lactos vary as
much as S. Cer.?? Next time, we'll bring back a bucket of the skum,
but it still looked like the top krausen, and from what they told me
this top skum is what they ripitch. Of course, with volume pitching,
who knows what the ratio of regular yeast to lacto is.
Best,
Jim Busch
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 09:18:20 -0800 (PST)
From: malodah at pbgueuze.scrm2700.PacBell.COM (Martin Lodahl)
Subject: The New Lindeman's Gueuze
In Lambic Digest #303 Ed Hitchcock sought to nip some Lindeman-bashing
in the bud:
> .... But let's not crap on
> Lindeman's, folks. Lindeman's is a perfectly decent, nay, a very good
> beer. It may not have the wild and woolly character of a Cantillon, but
> honestly, would you refuse to drink one? So gentle readers and fellow beer
> enthusiasts, let us watch what we say, lest we start to believe what it
> and become snobs.
My frustration with Lindeman's has been intense over the years, largely
because it successfully captured the lion's share of the U. S. market,
thereby creating a violently skewed perception of what lambics are,
and effectively closing the door on the more traditional products I
prefer. I've never tasted a European-market Lindeman's (I just never
seemed to be anywhere that had them without seeing something I'd
rather try instead), but always suspected that the very mild
products we were getting here were toned down at the behest of the
importer, to make them more accessible to the notoriously bland
American palates. If so, Charlie Finkel apparently believes we've
grown up. Last week I had several opportunities to taste a new
product in the final stages of label approval, expected to be on sale
within 90 days, and friends, I'm already a believer. Called "Cuvee
Rene' Grand Cru Gueuze-Lambic," it's clearly the genuine article,
at last. I'd place it just immediately below Frank Boon's Gueuze
in my own personal Pantheon. Only three cases were brought in,
and between dinner Thursday night, lunch Saturday, and the party
Saturday night, I doubt that any still remains on this continent,
but the flood will soon follow. IMHO, this is an excellent beer,
and deserves a fair tasting.
- Martin
= Martin Lodahl Systems Analyst, Capacity Planning, Pacific*Bell =
= malodah at pacbell.com Sacramento, CA USA 916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! (Unk.) =
------------------------------
Date: 18 Mar 94 17:19:00 GMT
From: korz at iepubj.att.com (Algis R Korzonas +1 708 979 8583)
Subject: Who crapped?
Ed writes:
>And yet, every once in a while, someone in this digest goes and craps on a
>perfectly good beer. Certainly Belle Vue is not very representative of
>hearty Lambic character, and may even be somewhat soda-pop like. Indeed,
>though Morte Subite (framboise) may be slightly more to style it too is still
>quite sweet and, well, polished for a wide audience. But let's not crap on
>Lindeman's, folks. Lindeman's is a perfectly decent, nay, a very good
>beer.
Ed... please... never did I knock Belle Vue or Lindemans. Read again. I
merely said that they were both more in-line with what I perceived to be
acceptable to mass-market American tastes. I enjoyed the Belle Vue Gueuze
and Kriek and currently have a good dozen Lindemans in my beer fridges (at 55F).
What I meant was, that Belle Vue and Lindemans are both brands that are
quite approchable to even the uninitiated. My wife Karen, says: "This isn't
beer." and gladly accepts any Lambiek, whereas Liberty Ale gets: "Blech!"
Whether Lindemans is "very good" or not, is debatable. Compared to others,
I feel it is rather excessive in the fruit area and deficient in both
lactic and Brett character. Timmermans is another beer which has been
often put in the same category as Lindemans, but I swear that the last
two bottles I've tasted, had more Brett character than Boon Kriek or
Framboise. Also, I've had St. Louis Gueuze which was quite variable:
one bottle had a lot of Brett, the other was virtually devoid of Brett
character (and tasted more like Belle Vue Gueuze). Notice that all I'm
doing here is placing these various beers on the Lambiek "scale" which
might have Belle Vue at one end and Cantillon at the other... I'm not
slamming any of them.
Anheuser-Busch on the other hand... ;^).
Al.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 13:47:29 PST
From: humphrey!cr at uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)
Subject: Scuba dat Liefmans, Rodenbach Yeast
Jim writes:
>>I read with interest the results of brewing with Liefmans yeast.
.....
>>solid agar slant and plated from there. Too bad if we only got
>>the clean yeast.
And Al K responds :
>Aha! I suspect that your chances of getting lactobacillus would have
>been much higher if you had been able somehow to bottom crop.
Now there's an idea, I was thinking about ceiling scrapings. Instead, I'll
bring scuba gear!!
But seriuosly.....
In retrospect, I may have passed up an opportunity. While at Liefmans,
my guides offered to let me get a yeast sample. I declined, knowing that
Mike already had one courtesy of Phil & Jim. The difference was that they
had just emptied a primary, and there was lots of good goo easily
accessible. Just one more reason to return.
On another topic, someone (forget who, sorry) asked Mike about which brewery
lets their yeast evolve without reculturing. Though he didn't post that
info originally, Mike was basically right about who & how.
Rodenbach has used the same yeast since at least 1836, and possibly since
1820. At their current level of production, 100,000 hl annually, they
generate about 150 liters of yeast slurry daily. They simply harvest the
crop, and pitch a portion of it into their next batch. This is easy for
them, because they brew several times per week (but not every day, as I
would have guessed).
150 liters is far more than they need to pitch, and so they must dispose of
the yeast somehow. In past times, they simply gave it away to local farmers,
who used it as a dietary supplement for livestock. This caused them a
problem. There was one employee who dispensed the slurry, and it was common
for the farmers to express their thanks by giving this guy a small kickback.
The other employess were unhappy about the "raise" that the yeast dispenser
got, and so they raised a stink. The brewery addressed the issue by charging
for the yeast, and now no one gets a kickback. Now they have a new problem.
Previously, a farmer would bring his own container and it would get filled
on demand. Now they have to pay an employee to package the yeast in one liter
jars, which cost BF20 for the yeast, and BF20 for a deposit on the jar. It's
a very low tech operation; a guy with a big pan, a ladle, and a bunch of jars.
Monetarily, the entire affair results in a net loss for the brewery. It
generates only BF3000 daily (~U$ 86), which is less than it costs to package
and sell the yeast. At least the employees have stopped complaining!
Cheers,
CR
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 19:25:51 -0600 (CST)
From: winstead%brauerei at cs.tulane.edu (Teddy Winstead)
Subject: Well, here I goooooo.........
I just received my Pedio and Brett cultures from Brewer's Resource.
Each of the two had the test tube, starter vial, and "ear dropper".
The idea is that you put sterile wort from the starter vial into the
test tube and then (a day or two later) use the dropper to transfer
a small amount of the innoculated solution into the starter.
I'm very impressed with the kit, as well as with the excellent
pamphlet included with it that was authored by Martin Lodahl.
My questions are these (and feel free to save bandwidth and email
responses to me):
How long will the test tubes last? How many uses can I expect out
of them?
Should I also pitch dregs from one of the remaining bottles of Cantillon
that I have fiendishly hoarded since my trip to Brussels?
I'm going to do an all-grain 65/35 barley/wheat with baked Hallertauer
hops. I'm probably going to adjust the recipe for 6-gallons, so I can
have more of the finished product (oink). I also want to use Hoegaarten
yeast as my Saccharomyces, I figure it'll give me a little more complexity.
I can't wait!!!!
- --
Teddy Winstead
winstead%brauerei at cs.tulane.edu
winstead at cs.tulane.edu
Computer Science Undergraduate
Fanatical Homebrewer
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End of Lambic Digest
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