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Lambic Digest #0287
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Subject: Lambic Digest #287 (February 27, 1994)
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 00:30:06 -0700
Lambic Digest #287 Sun 27 February 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Casks and pLambics (Dave Resch)
Techno-whining the lambic way (Todd Gierman)
Casks yet again (Nick Zentena)
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Date: Sat, 26 Feb 94 10:44:22 MST
From: resch at craycos.com (Dave Resch)
Subject: Casks and pLambics
Mike asks what I am doing with my casks...
Well, I just received the second one and have not yet done anything with it.
I expect that I will give it the same treatment as the first one I got:
- lots of initial rinsing to get rid of loose material in the keg and to get
it to start to swell to seal the cracks between the staves.
- repeated hot water soaks to remove easily extracted tannin, etc.
- soak with a very mild sulfite solution for a few weeks to allow slower
leaching of the tannins, but protecting from too many unknown wild
critters taking up residence.
I did this with the first cask and my current batch of pLambic has been in
that cask for over 8 months and I don't think it tastes very much at all of
Oak. I don't know if my treatment has anything to do with it or if it is
just because it is French Oak and doesn't impart as much flavor as the American.
This batch is coming along VERY nicely by the way! This is my second batch.
The first was done in glass. It continues to improve. It's about 2 years
old now and has been in the bottle about a year. While I am very happy
with the first batch, I feel it lacks both sourness and complexity.
For the second batch, I roughly followed Guinard's method for Framboise
(pg. 129). I used 2-row English Pale Ale Malt and Organic rolled wheat for
the wort. Not sure what type of wheat, but it's the same as I used in the
first batch...
I took a different approach to pitching the various strains of yeast and
bacteria this time: "pitch early pitch often"
I pitched a mixed culture containing:
- SNPA yeast cultured from a fresh bottle.
- B. Bruxellensis, B. Lambicus, P. Damnosus obtained indirectly from Mike's
Cultures.
- B. Lambicus and P. Damnosus fresh from GW Kent.
- A mixed culture that I grew from the dregs of one bottle of Michael
Matechuski's spontaneously fermented beers. (Michael is the guy from
Wisconsin who grow's all of the ingredients he uses in his beers. He
does spontaneous fermentations in large wooden casks and wrote an article
in Zymurgy describing it a couple of years ago - I really like his beers.)
These were all pitched immediately after cooling the wort. I started this
batch in two glass carboys and then racked it into my cask after about 10
days.
Fairly early into the fermentation, our sour (very sour) cherry tree started
producing lots and lots of cherries, so I added 2 3/4 pounds cleaned and
stemmed, but not pitted, and then about 4 pounds about a week later.
I know this is way too early... so sue me, I don't see many Belgians
following all the rules ;)
After about 6 months, the gravity had dropped from 1.056 (without cherries)
to 1.008 (with cherries). The pH had dropped to ~3.5 (my pH paper isn't
very accurate). I cultured some more of everything except the SNPA yeast and
pitched that at about 6 months. I also added another culture from a second
bottle of Matechuski's beer about this time.
It's now been about 8 months. The beer has a definitely assertive sourness.
In my opinion this is a lactic rather than an acetic sourness and I actually
taste very little if any acetic character. There is also some complexity
added by wood overtones from the cask.
I believe that a pellicle is now starting to form. There is a very thin
white layer floating on the top. From the descriptions that have been given
here, I believe it is a pellicle and not ropiness.
Before too long, I plan to add about 25-28 pounds of frozen raspberries to
the cask. The cask is about 50 litres. I will need to remove some wort first
and will continue to ferment this separately in a carboy, without adding any
raspberries for more of a non-fruit pLambic.
Whew! got a bit carried away there, but I haven't contributed much in a long
time...
Dave
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 13:51:54 -0500
From: tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)
Subject: Techno-whining the lambic way
Having tasted Jim Liddil's p-lambic (See Mike's review LD #283) and read
the many posted theories on the population dynamics of lambic fermentation,
I now feel my recently inactivated neurons beginning to fire. It seems
that I, too, have some ideas. How they whine like an ungreased axle! Here
goes.
_The Good, the Bad, and the Unblended_
I, too, was quite impressed with Jim's p-lambic. Admittedly, it is the
first completed, home-brewed p-lambic that I have tasted. However, I was
pleasantly surprised to find the basic components of a lambic represented
with a refreshing intensity. His p-lambic is exceptionally tart,
relatively dry, with a desirable amount (IMHO) of Brett character in nose
and palate. It does, however, fall short of that higher order of
complexity that Jim desires, which is clearly becoming his holy grail.
Trying to place it within the small spectrum of lambics that I have tried,
I realize that it does not match any one of them. In my spectrum I would
line up the lambics something like this:
Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic - appeals to the ignorant or "lambicly
challanged" - well, I do like it, but it isn't remotely a lambic.
Lindeman's - though all of the fruit lambics are available here, some even
at the local Kroger supermarket, I have steered clear under the advisement
of the LD. I suspect that they have an even greater appeal to first time
drinkers than the St. Louis does.
St. Louis Gueuze - high appeal to an uninitiated palate; one of the first
lambics I tried and liked, appeals to my wife's palate and to the palate of
other first time lambic drinkers known to me.
Boon Kriek - again, probable high appeal to the under developed lambic
palate. My first thought when I tried it was, "This would probably taste
good on pancakes." Pretty soft with subtle complexity, overpowering cherry
flavor.
Timmerman's Gueuze - This is mid-spectrum for me. Very drinkable with a
reasonable level of sourness and Brett character. Nice complexity gives
you something to think about as it goes down.
Boon Mariage Parfait (1986 Framboise) - This would seem to cover a broader
range of appeal, depending on the serving temp. Having had a bottle pretty
much to myself (oink), I noticed a gradual change as it came up in
temperature. Served cold, it is much more subdued - my wife said that it
tasted something like champaign (thumbs up). Warmer it takes on a much
greater complexity, becoming somewhat "goaty" with Brett character (I grew
up with horses and know what sweaty horse blankets smell like (uh, uh); I
am more ignorant about goats, but imagine intense Brett character as
"goaty" (if you have experience with goats please feel free to correct
this)). It is very nice at all levels.
Boon Gueuze - I would have to say appeals to a much more developed palate
(more developed than, say, mine). While I can appreciate it, there is a
flavor component that I find somewhat objectionable (I don't think that it
is just intense Brett either). Jackson calls it "earthy". I call it
"mouldering goat carcass" (heresy, I know).
Cantillon - not available here, but by all accounts, more extreme in
hardness than the others. For lambic connoiseurs only?
So, getting back to my point: I would place Jim's p-lambic between St.
Louis and Timmerman's (putting Boon Kriek aside because it is fairly sweet).
Certainly, Jim has achieved a greater degree of sourness and Brett
character than what I remember of the St. Louis. However, his brew is low
on complexity.
But the point that I really want to raise is this: aren't we really
comparing apples and oranges? Realizing that what we have available to us
are blended products, one wonders, are we being Gueuze snobs? What I want
to know is how a p-lambic like Jim's might compare to a straight, unblended
lambic. Surely, blending is an essential component of complexity. Can any
of the itinerant patrons of the Brussels cafe scene comment on the
complexity of straight lambics?
I am now contemplating reserving one gallon from each batch to use for
blending at a later date. So, let's see, by the end of this year I should
have 1 gallon. Maybe in three or four years I will have a full five gallon
batch for blending. You are right, Jim, the road to enlightenment is a
long one. Come to think of it, the Beer sensory wheel does sort of
resemble the Buddhist prayer wheel, doesn't it? Gee, only eleven more
stages to go :-)
_Order of Addition: Reconstructing a lambic ecosystem_
Frankly, I never did understand the rationale of the pitching order
prescribed by Guinard. Presumably, lambics are inoculated during open
cooling and then by transfer to the cask. No, doubt brewers hedge now and
then and throw in some slurry. But, in theory, everything is potentially
there in the beginning. Population densities are reflective of nutrient
utilization and growth rate. Populations rise and fall, and stages of
fermentation come and go, not necessarily because of external controls,
but, more likely, because of internal pressures (population dynamics).
Now, rather, than pitching wads of pure cultures at different stages, it
may be as effective, and simpler, to pitch a lot of things either together
or in a shorter time frame. One might even vary the amount of an organism
pitched to compensate. For instance, I pitched my p-lambic while still
under the influence of the idea that a strong S. cerevisiae ferment (using
a clean strain) was important. So, I pitched 300 ml of S. cerevisiae. I
also threw in 5 ml of Champaign yeast (S. bayanus), thinking that it might
come up after the first and add a little more complexity, but not too much.
Fifty milliliters of Boon Brett/bugs culture was also pitched, as was 5 ml
of Pedio.
What have I got? Well, the gravity seemed to stall for a couple of weeks
around 1016, but once the air temp increased a little, it dropped to 1010.
Brett character came up nicely shortly after the main part of the
fermentation had ended (within several weeks of pitching). At 2 months
(now) the Brett seems softer, as the beer begins to dry out and sour
slightly. The objectionable hops astringency seems to have dropped out
too.
But I am wondering. Rather than using a yeast like Chico, wouldn't it make
more sense to use a blend of interesting S. cerevisiae strains to try to
establish some complexity up front? I imagine that much of the S.
cerevisiae produced component will be lost during the course of the long
ferment, with Brett and other organisms scavanging many of the simpler
organic molecules (in the presence of O2, Brett converts ethanol to acetic
acid, for example). So, is it really a problem if you have diacetyl
producing yeast? Probably not - pedio will also produce diacetyl, which
eventually drops out. Perhaps, interesting S. cerevisiae could augment
complexity.
What is the wisdom concerning the contribution of Brett to the complexity
of a lambic? I notice that Jim and Mike are adding numerous Brett strains
to their ferments (taking a "can't hurt" attitude, I assume). Will the
strains contribute more than that ephemeral "Brett" character? Will more
strains add a noticeable complexity where a single strain will not (I
guess, we'll find out, huh?)
I definitely agree with Jim's assessment of the significance of the
contribution of the eighty odd critters that Frank Boon finds in his
lambics. I would wager that only a handful (10-15%) of them have a
significant impact on the product. Many of the isolates undoubtedly never
produce mature populations until they are pulled out and examined in the
lab. Every time samples are taken and analyzed, only a small snapshot of a
big picture is obtained. Sort of like the blind men and the elephant - it
is easy to overemphasize the significance of the item that one has in hand.
One comment on Jim's open air inoculation technique: I don't worry about
the bacteria, I worry about picking up some persistent, alcohol-tolerant,
phenol-producing, oxidative yeast like the one that I have that has been
spread out over the top of a fermented batch of koelsch for the past 5
months.
Whew! Quiet :-)
Todd
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 94 18:35:49 EST
From: zen at hophead.north.net (Nick Zentena)
Subject: Casks yet again
Hi,
I talked to a local retailer while I was picking up a keg. He
won't do mailorder because of shipping and customs. He feels it
will likely triple the cost of the cask. He also expressed a
little wonder at the problem of getting casks in the US since
most of the local wineries import thiers from south of the
border.
His idea was to check out one of the following magazines:
Pratical Winery or
Wine and Vine [Might be Vine&Wine]
I get the feeling both are trade rags. He stated both contain
quite a few ads for cask makers/sellers and they should be
available from the libary.
Now for a question. He had available Glycerine [Foodgrade] for a
very good price $2 4oz. I'm hoping I can use this to freeze
normal ale yeasts using the method mentioned in Zymurgy Special
issue awhile back. I'm also assuming I can't use this for Brett&
Pedio? Yes no?
Thanks
Nick
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I drink Beer I don't collect cute bottles!
zen at hophead.north.net
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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End of Lambic Digest
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