# 8.2 Lambic 2

This time of year there is always a lot of fresh fruit available and I took full advantage. In my second Lambic attempt I used a mixed slurry of Brett and  bacteria. The bulk of the Brett was WLP 644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois.  This Brett strain throws of nice peach, mango, and pineapple flavors. I wanted to complement those flavors with the fruit itself. Out of the three fruits I could only get peaches fresh. Everything I've read suggested that peaches are the worst fruit to add to a beer. So naturally I did it anyway. I rack half of the four gallon batch onto two pounds of sliced and pitted  peaches. I plan to let it sit on the fruit for a month and the first half will remain plan.

Tasting : Sour Porter 2.0

It's been eight months from brew day for the second half of my Sour Porter. It's been long enough to see how the funky portion turned out. 

Just like the first half, the second has a strong oak flavor from the London Ale strain. It works well with the slight barnyard funk of the Brett. The earthy hop character is subdued compared to the first, but still present. The chocolate flavors are bigger, but more rounded and less harsh. My only complaint is the sourness it's strong enough. I plan on doing a rebrew with the same grain bill, but shoot for somthing more sour.

# 8 Lambic 2

My first Lambic turned out so good I decided to try it again. The last one was very unorthodox for a Lambic for several reasons. The biggest being it wasn't boiled and a two to three hour boil is the norm for the style. 

This attempt is much more traditional with a two hour boil. I also went with aged hops and flaked wheat. I chose to use flaked wheat over the straight raw wheat. I don't have any experience with straight raw wheat and it seemed to be difficult to work with. Lambic historically used a Turbin mash. A Turbin mash is a multi tempature mash endding with a sparge at near boiling tempatures.  I tried to mimic the effect of this without the hassle by doing a two step mash at 148F and 158F. Then sparging at 190F. For the yeast I pitched a few bottles of sour dregs along with wlp 011 European Ale.

Traditional Lambic 

Fermentable's - 6# 2row, 2# flaked wheat, 1# malted wheat

Hops - 2oz aged Brewers Gold whole hops

Yeast - wlp 011 European Ale, Mixed sour dregs 

Mash - 30 min @ 148F, 30 min @ 158F, mash out @ 190F

Boil - 120 min 

Fermentation Temp - 70F

Batch Size - 4 Gallon

OG - 1.062

FG - 1.003

# 7 Flanders Red

I took a short vacation in the Portland Maine area last week. Portland has a great beer and food culture with several breweries and  brew pubs. Every restaurant I ate at had a great beer selection. The beer I drank the most while in Portland was Rodenbach.

    This will be my first attempt at the Flanders Red style. It's a great style but I'm going to stray from tradition a bit. I try  to use American and/or organic ingredients whenever possible which is obviously not traditional.

Flanders Red

Fermentables - 7# Briess Pale Malt, 4oz Briess Organic 60, 2oz Special B

Hops - 1oz Crystal pellet

Yeast - Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend

Mash - 60 min

Boil - 90 min 

Fermentation Temp - 70F

Batch Size - 3 Gallon

OG - 1.062

FG - 

Competition: Lambic

I decided to enter my first home brewing competition. As I looked through my cellar of beers I only had one that would fit into

a BJCP style category, other than the specially category. I picked the  No Boil Lambic.  Even though it is far from tradition not to boil a Lamic, this one still came out very close to style. It's also my favorite beer I've ever brewed. At the very least I'll get some good feed back. I'll be posting on the results good or bad in the future.

Bottling: No Boil Lambic

Today was bottling day for the No Boil Lambic.  The gravity stayed steady at 1.002 for a month, so I decided to bottle it.  The sourness is quite assertive at this point.  While the Brett character is present, its one dimensional.  Just a strong cherry pie filling Brett flavor without much else.  In a traditional straight Lambic  there is little to no carbonation and a Gueuze is highly carbonated.  I primed half the bottles for high carbonation and half for low carbonation.