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Lambic Digest #0456
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From: lambic-request at lance.colostate.edu (subscription requests only - do not post here)
To: lambic at lance.colostate.edu
Subject: Lambic Digest #456 (September 29, 1994)
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 00:30:28 -0600
Lambic Digest #456 Thu 29 September 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Bringing up baby: a progress report (Todd Gierman)
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Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 21:52:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Todd Gierman <tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Bringing up baby: a progress report
Well, I have 15 gallons of p-lambic sitting in the big closet under the
stairs. Now what?
The 10-month old is doing very well. Half of the batch is sitting on 6-8
pounds of blackberries and the other half is just sitting. This batch
has dropped considerably in gravity (from 1056-1004) and pH (about
3.5-3.7). It has cleared very nicely. Put the blackberries into a
3-gallon carboy and racked the p-lambic on top. Whole blackberries float
after a few days, and the potential danger of a blocked airlock becomes
evident. When parted with a clean table knife, the blackberry cake
yeilds a nice purple froth that oozes from the wound (I know, leave it
alone, but I can't stop fussing over it - remember those spit baths
your mother used to give you?). An increase in the Brett character is
noticeable (not horsey, but very distinct). This batch has become very
sour. This is good; according to the CAMRA's Good Beer Guide to Belgium
and Holland, classic lambic or Gueuze is very sour and thin - nothing
sweet about it. They even chide Boon for partial filtration and
suspected sweetening.
Both the blackberry half and the straight half will be blended with
portions of a 10-gallon split batch and bottled - yes, the "twins" are
doing fine :-) Both are in their post-primary stage which seemed to
stabilize around 1020. "Boon" has now dropped to about 1016 and
"Cantillon" has hit 1014 (they grow up so fast, don't they?). A
multitude of small-volume cultures was pitched in succession over the
course of several days. Fermentation seemed slow and prolonged. These
two are still excessively turbid and have a slight tannic/phenolic flavor
that will convince some that the blended product came from a cask. I
suspect that this is a product of a boiling-water sparge and a poor cold break. I will cycle
them through cold temperatures and add fining material to see if this
won't clear up a little
The big feat will be getting them blended and bottled. I will have to
guess how much carbonation the young uns will contribute and make up the
difference with corn sugar. The worrisome thing is that they are
becoming quite dry and tart (well the older one anyway) and that after
some time in the bottle, they will be downright austere - no way of
stopping the process with Brett around. I know that my friends and
fellow local homebrewers will be turning away in disgust and that I could
not comfortabley consume 15 gallons of good Cantillon, let alone bad
Cantillon. I guess we will be eating alot of Blackberry Gueuze
vinaigrette on our salads next summer. One begins to realize why Frank
and others have turned to filtering and sweetening (C'mon, there's little
doubt that he filters some of his products): the hoi polloi appreciates a
good confection. Belle Vue anyone?
Todd
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End of Lambic Digest
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