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Lambic Digest #0416
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Subject: Lambic Digest #416 (August 09, 1994)
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 00:30:15 -0600
Lambic Digest #416 Tue 09 August 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Racking question (brewing chemist Mitch)
suggestions for Brussells (Jose Francisco Pereira Martins)
Lambic Digest #414 (August 05, 1994) (Todd Gierman)
Head Start L. delb. (BAN5845)
Saison Discussion Anyone? (Teddy Winstead)
Relax, don't worry, brew a p-lambic (Todd Gierman)
Lambic yeasts, plastic contamination. (Aaron Shaw)
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Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 09:33:19 -0500 (CDT)
From: gellym at aviion.persoft.com (brewing chemist Mitch)
Subject: Racking question
Well,
the pLambic is finally on its way, about two weeks old now. Is it ready
yet? ;-> Thanks to those of you who I personally wrote for advice. The 32
pounds of grain mashed and sparged considerably well, considering the 12
pounds of raw wheat that was in it ! The only problem I had was that I kind
of forgot how a four hour boil will darken the wort - initially I thought
"I'd better throw a half pound of cara-Munich in for a little color".
Unnecessary, obviously. It came out a bit darker than I would like, but hey.
I do have a question still. A friend of mine was gracious enough to lend me
a 12 gallon carboy (pyrex!) for the primary. Now it seems he will need it back
soon. The initial kloeckera/saccaromyces blow off is done, just perking along
now. Should I just rack into my two 6.5 gal carboys as I normally would, or
should I 'swirl' it a bit, to get all of the sediment on the bottom back into
suspension first? It's not cold-break; I let the wort chill on its own over
a two day period and racked out of the boiler. I would hate to potentially
waste anything good sitting in the bottom of the carboy
For those collecting them, here is the recipe:
pLambic (14 gallons)
18 lbs DC pale ale malt
2 lbs DC wheat malt
1/2 lb DC cara-Munich (not necessary!)
12 lbs soft red winter wheat
1/2 lb aged Tettnanger whole hops (1.5 years old, then baked at 275F 1 hour)
300 ml starters of each of the following:
B. Bruxellensis, B. Lambicus, K. Apiculata, P. Cerevesiae
500 ml starter S. Cerevesiae (Wyeast 1338 euro)
OG: 1055
Color: Amber-Brown, a bit too dark.
Milled all barley and malted wheat with jack(tm)mill, ground raw wheat to
mostly flour with Corona (what a pain in the ass *that* was!)
Doughed in with 36 qts untreated (normally hard) water at 140F, settled to
122F. After 20 min, raised to 141F. After 25 min, raised to 154F. Let sit
for ~75 minutes. Sparged with ~16 gallons of same water at ~195F. Sparge
went quite smoothly (did add 1/2 pound rice hulls to mash right before) and
was amazingly clear. Simmered/boiled 4 hours, hops added at beginning. As time
went by, I would occasionally scoop out a pile of hops with strainer, until at
end of boil all there was were the hops in 'suspension'.
Let cool on its own, took a good 36 hours. I kept the lid on, did not want
any of my local critters in it. Racked 11.5 gallons into 12 gallon carboy,
2.5 gallons to 5 gallon carboy. To the small carboy I pitched the dregs from
all the Cantillon and Boon bottles that we drank while brewing. To the big
boy I pitched everything except the saccharomyces. I wanted the Kloeckera to
get the head start. After about four days of good ferment, I pitched the
saccharomyces.
So what do you all think about racking now? I will have no choice within two
weeks. btw, would that be a good time to add the fr. oak chips ?
Thanks again,
Mitch
Also, that 2.5 gallons has a nice kraeusen on it now.
- --
| - Mitch Gelly - | Zack Norman |
| software QA specialist, systems administrator, zymurgist, | is |
| AHA/HWBTA beer judge, & president of the Madison Homebrewers | Sammy in |
| - gellym at aviion.persoft.com - gelly at persoft.com - | Chief Zabu |
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 94 15:30:43 EST
From: Jose Francisco Pereira Martins <AFRMART%BRUFSM.BITNET at VTBIT.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: suggestions for Brussells
Hello
I have been a reading-only member of the list. My interests are on LAB (all
possible uses). As far as I know there are no lambics down here in Brazil and
I am very curious about all their aspects. I learned a lot through the list. I
shall be going to UK next month and returning via-Brussells (lambic-motivated,
of course). I do ask your help: worthwhile suggestions on pubs to visit, makes
to taste, and so. I shall stay long enough to get drunk several times!
Cheers
Jose
e-Mail: afrmart at brufsm
fax: 00 55 55 226 2347
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 21:10:23 -0500
From: tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)
Subject: Lambic Digest #414 (August 05, 1994)
Concerning:
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 1994 15:50:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: BAN5845 at tntech.edu
Subject: Head Start L. delb.
>That culture is not the current culture of L. delb. I
>sell. The culture I sell is an ATCC culture via the Berlin Brewing School.
>If Mr. Mud's ;-) culture happens to be the same from the ATCC, then its
>identical.
Okay, sorry for the misinformation. Obviously, "Old #3" doesnt' grow well
in everybody's hands, and from that standpoint might certainly make a poor
commercial culture.
However, my suggestion to use any L. delbrueckii as a sour mash bug, rather
than in the primary ferment, still stands. Hop tolerance and cool
temperatures may be the biggest obstacles to using L. delbrueckii - of
course, doing a separate L. delbrueckii ferment and then blending it with
the larger ferment is one way around it. In spite of Michael Jackson's
insistance that Schultheiss is dosed with L. delbrueckii, I doubt that the
bug is used in this manner and it is probably L. brevis (L. pastorianus, L.
fermentatae) to which he refers. L. delbrueckii just does not seem to be
present in various bottles of soured beers (has anyone found some?),
whereas other lactobacilli are.
Todd
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 21:05:03 -0500 (CDT)
From: winstead%brauerei at cs.tulane.edu (Teddy Winstead)
Subject: Saison Discussion Anyone?
Pierre Rajotte gives a somewhat curious recipe for saison in his book
"Belgian Ales", which goes something like this --
7.6 lbs Pale Malt
3 oz Crystal
0.3 oz Chocolate Malt
0.5 lb Wheat Malt
0.5 lb Sugar
23 IBUs of Hallertauer, Bittering
Saaz for Aroma
0.5 oz Corriander
He gives an OG of 1.054.
Now, call me crazy, but isn't a Saison supposed to have a lot more wheat,
and isn't the OG figure a bit high for the given recipe? Maybe along the
lines of 3 lbs of Wheat Malt? Has anyone here had good success with various
yeasts for a saison? The only qualities that I know a saison yeast should
posess are high attenuation, but what about esters?
Thanks in advance, as always.
- --
Nathaniel Scott "Teddy" Winstead |
winstead at cs.tulane.edu (Preferred) |
winstead%brauerei.uucp at cs.tulane.edu |
Fanatical Homebrewer & CS Undergrad/Grad |
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 22:27:02 -0500
From: tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman)
Subject: Relax, don't worry, brew a p-lambic
I have been suspecting for sometime that brewing a p-lambic should be the
epitome of the "relax, don't worry" attitude and I put this into practice a
week and a half ago. Okay, there are alot of things to worry about in
theory, but after having watched my first effort progress over the past
eight months and having delved abit further into the process both through
this forum and other sources, I relaxed a little bit. I suppose, too, that
being armed to the teeth with various microorganisms can make one a tad
cocky. And, finally, two infants and a wife who insists "that absolutely
no brewing will occur this weekend" can really throw a wrench in the
system.
But, think about it: a beer where you want poor conversion and carryover
of the starches, bacterial and wild yeast "contamination", and poor hops
utilization (well, no bittering, flavor or aroma to speak of). Hallelujah,
I am in my element!
This was a split, 10-gallon batch which will ultimately be blended with my
"old" p-lambic (I am assuming that it will lack complexity on its own, so
why bottle as is?). The grainbill went something like this: 7 pds. Hugh
Baird Pale Ale malt, 7 pds. Durst Pilsener malt, 6 pds. Soft White Wheat, 1
pd. D&C Aromatic (I used entirely different malts in the previous batch:
American six-row and M&F 2-row, and D&C Pils along with some Aromatic). I
essentially followed Guinard's mashing schedule (b-gluconase rest, boil the
wheat, add back to arrive at sacch. temp). Sorry, the turbid mash seemed
to require more water than I wanted to deal with. I let it sit at sacch.
temp for a couple of hours and played with the chidrens, which seemed to
lessen the intensity of my wife's glare abit. Brought it up to mashout at
170-180 and sparged with 5 gallons 180-195 temp water (total about 11
gallons) - water at this temperature will cause little plastic balloons to
form on the inner layer of an igloo cooler. No time to boil; no more
propane either. I let this sweet wort sit covered in the boiler all night
and the next day.
The next evening, much to my surprise, I had a nice sour mash going: the
top of the wort was layered with stringy, L. delbrueckii (I'm guessing).
It hadn't soured but was on it's way. Stoked the burner, added 4 ounces of
badly packaged, year-old Fuggles hops (I won't mention the brand, but they
could benefit from oxygen barrier packaging) - I also baked them at 170F
for several hours, and added 3/4 pound of malto-dextrin that was sitting
around. Added a little more water and let the boil go for two hours.
Again, no time, so I covered the pot and let it cool overnight and the next
day.
The next evening, I transferred the wort to the carboys, which I
contemplated not sanitizing - couldn't bring myself to do it, so did a
quickie sanitizing swirl with bleach and water. Gravity was at about 1058
for 9 gallons, so I took out a little and added tap water ending up
somewhere in the 1054-56 range at 10 gallons.
Pitched 20-ml saturated Kloeckera apiculata culture in each carboy. The
"ferment" sat for about 36 hours with no sign of activity. Finally, a
snow-white krauesen appeared (hey! this works like a Wyeast packet!). At
this point I decided to add the rest of the cast of characters in very
small amounts (5-15 ml starters). Into Carboy A ("Boon") went: Boon
Sacchromyces isolates #1 and #2, Boon Gueuze mix (Brett + bugs), Boon Faro
Bretts (2 isolates), S. bayanus and P. damnosus. Carboy B ("Cantillon")
received: Fullers Ale yeast, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus mix (Brett + bugs
+ Sacch?), S. bayanus and P. damnosus. Fortunately, I came home in the
afternoon and heard the carboys gushing out the airlocks - nothing serious
at that point just enough to inoculate the walls of my little bathroom
brewery with the requisite microflora (it takes years of accretion to get
the right stuff, you know). I suspect that I have also acquired some
enterobacteria element as the whole ferment smells mainly of creamed corn
(DMS) at this point. I had wanted to inoculate the ferments with E. coli
K-12 in honor of Jim Liddil, but my K-12 would not grow in hopped wort - I
even toyed with the idea of using Dan McConnell's cheesey-smelling Brussels
inoculum, but lost my nerve - so I can't complain about the contamination.
Today I rounded out the cast with the additions of D. bruxellensis and D.
anomala isolates and several cultures of Candida (sake and lambica). I
think that will have to do - I can't match Frank Boon's eighty-odd
specimens, nor do I want to try.
Well, I figure that it will be at least 4 months before I find out just how
humbling of an experience this will be.
Todd
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 01:20:58 -0400
From: ar568 at freenet.carleton.ca (Aaron Shaw)
Subject: Lambic yeasts, plastic contamination.
I am just gearing up to attempt my first plambic, but have
two questions first:
1) Where is the best place to buy Brettanomyces Lambicus
and Brettanomyces Bruxelliensis ? My local homebrew shop said
that they could order some for $18 a piece. That seems a little
expensive, is it?
2) I also heard that once plastic (racking cane, tubing,
air-lock, etc...) came into contact with the plambic that they
could never be used for brewing any other type of beer. Wouldn't
a good sterilizing solution eliminate any residual bacteria?
Actually I lied, I have a third question.
3) Is it necessary to use unmalted wheat as opposed to the
malted variety?
Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in
advance.
- --
"Come my lad, and drink some beer!"
Aaron Shaw
Ottawa, Canada
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End of Lambic Digest
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