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Lambic Digest #0290
From postmaster at longs.lance.colostate.edu Wed Mar 2 03:13:02 1994
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Subject: Lambic Digest #290 (March 02, 1994)
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 00:30:08 -0700
Lambic Digest #290 Wed 02 March 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Candi Sugar/Rajotte (Jeff Frane)
yeast culturing (DAVID BERG)
natural innoculation (Aaron Birenboim)
Art, science, and Lambic brewing (Ed Hitchcock)
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Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 06:50:38 -0800 (PST)
From: gummitch at teleport.com (Jeff Frane)
Subject: Candi Sugar/Rajotte
Norman Dickenson suggested that there was an interesting discussion of
brewing sugars in Rajotte's book. I would hesitate to apply the
adjective "good", myself -- I thought it was perhaps the most misleading
and contradictory portion of a sloppy, confused book. Rajotte's sugar
information is *not* especially reliable.
In respect to dark candi sugar, I would second Phil Seitz's note that --
once again, in despite of the AHA and Rajotte -- you should not expect a
color contribution of any significance. I believe that the dark sugar
*does* provide a specific flavor contribution, although it may be
slight, but haven't had the opportunity to do a control. I think that
sensitive, judicious use of Belgian caramel malts (and especially
Special B) is far more critical.
I say "Hooray" for sugar in beer, when properly used, but some of the
homebrew "information" is suspect.
- --Jeff
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Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 08:07:41 -0700
From: berg%eccx.dnet at esu36.ateng.az.Honeywell.COM (DAVID BERG)
Subject: yeast culturing
Hey all-
Last night I cracked open a bottle of Liefman's Goudenband. After
polishing that off (it was a magnum) I decided to attempt to culture
the yeast. I used some wort I had canned in this attempt. My question
is: is the yeast contained in the bottle viable (assuming it's not dead) and
will it be usable, or is it just yeast they pitch for bottling?
Next question: where is everyone getting their cultures of pedio and brett?
I have a friend who lives in Ann Arbor who informed me that GW Kent has
closed their door to walk in customers and is strictly a distributor now. I
doubt they would be willing to send me 1 or 2 cultures ;^) It seems every
reference I read
alludes to getting the yeast from Mike!
Dave
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Date: Tue, 1 Mar 94 08:34:19 MST
From: abirenbo at redwood.hac.com (Aaron Birenboim)
Subject: natural innoculation
I have no knowledge of u-bio, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth
anyway. As many of you know, I'm always willing to give away opinions!!! ;-)
How did that guy who grows his own ingredients innoculate? My guess
is that it is only really reasonable to do in the cooler months of a
temperate zone. say oct...march or april. Since the real lambic brewers
do not brew in summer, my guess would be that a spontaneous innoculation
in a warm region like so cal would be asking for some nasty brew.
(I am not worrying about toxins for this discussion)
I have a half gallon of brown ale wort which spontaneously fermemnted.
I haven't tasted it, but i will. It was most likely innoculated by
bugs in my basement and/or fridge. The story is that I had saved some wort
for starters in the fridge. I used some, and forgot to put the unused portion
back. It fermented.
aaron
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Date: Tue, 01 Mar 1994 12:18:41 -0400
From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH at ac.dal.ca>
Subject: Art, science, and Lambic brewing
In the continuing battle of wits (nitwits?) Jim Liddil parried my thrust as
follows:
>I guess I was not being direct enough about not the humor here :-) But again
>lambic is not the normal ale or lager. And many belgian lambic brewers don't
>care about the processes and how thye apply. They just cool the owrt overnight
>in open coll ships and pump it into wood casks
Tell that to Frank Boon. Brewing a Lambic (as opposed to a
pLambic) requires lots of special knowledge, because there are so many
variables.
>My point was not to suggest adding enterics directly but to let them come from
>the air by cooling the wort overnight. What beginner has not stuck his arm
>into the wort or used old bacteria laden yeast. Granted these bacteria survive
>in normal beer but not for long in lambic. If cooling overnight is so
>dangerous how come more belgians aren't dead or sick. After having had a
>number of Cantillons lately I don't believe Van Roy practices any
>sanitation
>:-)
My point was that the "order" of fermentation of lambics is not
necessarily obeyed by the critters in your kitchen. According to Guinard,
the enterics (and, btw, E. coli is not one of the enterics listed by
Guinard) take over first, and are subdued by the yeasts. In a batch I
brewed last spring the enterics took over, but were not only not inhibited
by the yeast, they actually kept growing to the extent that there was a
SECOND KRAEUSEN from bacterial activity weeks after the yeast had gone
dormant.
>In your brewery. Have you done ap-lambic and check it for enteric bacteria
>after it has been in femrnetaiton and the bottle for two years?
No. But enterics should disappear entirely long before it goes
into the bottle.
>% You don't need pathogenic bacteria to be alive to a) ruin your
>% beer, b) poison you. Think botulism...
>
>We are not talking about regular beer. This is p-lambic it is naturally
>infected and some people would already say it is ruined :-). I am not an
>expert but has boutlism ever been found in beer.
I was making an example. To elaborate, botulism is a toxin
produced by bacteria. The bacteria need not be present for the food to
kill you. That's why you can get botulism from cooked food. The moral
being that faith in the "Nothing pathogenic can live in beer" does not
guarrantee that something yucky can easily spoil your p-Lambic. A good
Hafnia infestation, if allowed to survive too long will take your DMS
levels through the roof.
> ...Again how had lambic been
>brewed for so long and it is not killing people?
But I bet there have been hundreds of bad batches!
> ...I still fail to see how
>cooling the wort naturally can cause a problem or is the air inherently
>different in Payottenland vs Tucson, AZ. Well, it is but from an infection
>pathogenic standpoint I would venture to guess it is not. Then again maybe
>some valley fever cocci might get in my beer. But it would not survive
>since I already asked.
Aha. The microflora in your kitchen/backyard are immensely
different from those in the attic of a lambic brewery. Your kitchen is
full of not only enteric and other vbacteria, but Penicilium spores and
scores of other moulds and weird things. The attics of Lambic breweries
have been selectively breeding certain bacteria (and bats) for generations.
>But the belgain lambic brewers seem to have the attitude that one cools the
>wort and puts it into casks and let htings happen. Works for them. So I still
>feel that natural inncoluation is worth trying and something not to worry
>about. :-)
It is worth trying. It has been tried before, and will be again.
I feel though that it IS something to worry about, and if one is truly
serious about making a decent p-Lambic, they should read up and understand
what they are doing. You have obviously done your homework, except I still
stick to my original comment which was that E. coli in your wort should not
be taken with a cavalier attitude. This is not because it may show up in
the finnished product after two years in the bottle. It may not only
produce off-flavours, but may survive long enough in the fermenting wort to
cause serious illness if a sample is taken at say, 2-3 months. There are a
gazillion strains of E. coli, and some are very unpleasant indeed.
____________
Ed Hitchcock ech at ac.dal.ca | Oxymoron: Draft beer in bottles. |
Anatomy & Neurobiology | Pleonasm: Draft beer on tap. |
Dalhousie University, Halifax |___________________________________|
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End of Lambic Digest
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