Lambic or Gueze at home?

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I did one semi-attempt with some spontaneous fermentaion. I ended w/6 gallons. I let it cool outside for about five hours until the steam subsided. Basically I put it a 15 gal metal MT. But my understanding now is that you still want the wort to cool relatively fast. Also I've read that in the cooler months there is less bad stuff in the air. I wish I could find that reference.

So just shy of 5 gal went into a 5 gal carboy and I pitched WYeast mixed Lambic culture and put one gal in a small carboy with no pitch. The 5 gallon is doing great taste wise, but not a lot of scum on top. The one gallon got a thick pectile but never cleared and any krausen. Didn't seem to stellar so I pitched it.

Not very impressive


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I have done two spontaniously fermented brews. Each time I left it out to air until first signs of fermentation, the 1st one was in the summer and took over night, the second time in winter took 2 days. From there I racked to a fermenter. The first one is bottled now and I added raspberries to it and it is a solid brew with a mildy funky and tart kick. The second is in primary still and will be monitored for a long while. I actually had my cousin build me a coolship out of stainless steel that is pretty cool to use on the second one and I look forward to using it more.

 

Make sure you call it a pLambic. (Pseudo-Lambic).

Or a pGueuze.

Or a pKolsch.

 

I've done 2. They are on my blog. I can't post the links from my phone unfortunately. The blog is on my profile. There are 2 updates to the latest Lambic I did in September.

 

and don't forget pWest Coast IPA, pEnglish Pale Ale, pCzech Pilsner, who cares?

I've done a bunch of different beers in the mold of lambic. Lots of different ways to get it done, but I'd avoid a truely spontaneous fermentation. Lambic brewers have microbes in their walls, barrels, hoses etc. Without that the odds of a delicious beer are low. If you want to use local microbes, you can make some spontaneeous starters, and pitch those. http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/04/ambient-spontaneous-yeast-starters.html

 

Ever since reading Jamil and Chris White's book "Yeast", I have been nervous to try spontaneous fermentation. I am assuming that if something truly harmful gets in, the beer will taste bad enough to alert your brain not to continue drinking, but still a little freaked out by the section on spontaneous fermentation.

 

If you are worried, just lower the pH of the wort to ~4.4 (acid malt, acid, sour mash etc.) before inoculation, which inhibits growth of the nasties. Or do a starter, and allow the pH of it to drop before pitching. Either way, I’d still hedge my bets and wait a few weeks after active fermentation to taste.

 

I've started five batches of lambic and I currently have about 40 gallons of beer souring(reds, lambics, and other) at various ages between 6 and 18 months of age. I really like sour beers. It's an investment in both time and money. To make a great flanders red you'll probably need to blend beers. To make a geueze you need to blend beers. So you have a pretty simple batch of beer light pilsen and wheat extract aging for a while in a carboy or a keg. I've had to buy many additional fermentors to keep making other beers to drink in the interim.

The byo style profile with info from Steve Piatz is pretty good, The Brewing Network Podcast from Jamil is pretty good as well.

My best advice would be to plan on a year to two years to get things started. If you need inspiration to keep going at this point follow Cantillion on face book and see how wonderful everything looks in belgium. It keeps my resolve high.

Wild brews is a good book with a lot of knowledge on the topic of brewing lambics. I hear Oldsock is working on a book that I am sure will be good based on his blog. I have a blog and you can get to it through my profile, the last time I linked to it some jackass reported me for advertising.

 

i've been toying with doing this in the vineyards and orchards around the Niagara region. i assume there will be some nice results.

 

i'll go one step further and i've contacted a few brewers and DIYers. we'll try a springtime project around the Toronto area. look at fermenting in Toronto and the areas around it. Toronto's surrounded by 2 (polluted) rivers and a lake. so there are bugs here. just not sure how delicious they are.

the next question: how long after you get a starter going could/should it be used to brew?

 

I let mine for for a couple weeks, stepped them up, a week or two more, then pitched. I wanted to see active fermentation, and something that smelled (tasted if you were brave) non-offensive. Doesn't need to be delicious, but I'd avoid moldy, rotten, foul etc.

Good luck!

 

Start small. This way you don't waste 5 gallons.

It is better to do it on the cooler months. Less nasty bacteria in the air. It was Chris Colby from byo that said Cantillon makes their beer in the fall for that reason. He said this I think on basic brewing network after his trip to the brewery.

 

How cold is too cold to do this? Here in Chicago its getting in the low teens at night, is the temp to low to try a spontaneous fermentation? Do you rack it to a carboy or let it sit in the kettle and wait?

 

Coolship are wide and shallow, you still need for the wort to cool relatively fast. And you need a big surface area (air-wort) for the junk in the air to fall into the wort.

My thought would be that the coolship is just to cool the wort and to have the dust particles (or whatever) fall into the wort. The wort isn't really in it long enough for fermentation to start. Since there does seem to be a ratio of temp to what is air, I'd guess the question would be at that temperature would there be anything in the air?

As I said before I split my wort into 100% spontaneous and spontaneous w/a pitch of WYeast Lambic blend. I threw out the 100% spontaneous carboy.

 

Cantillon brews in the spring as well. They actually even brewed the other day. See their Facebook page for some pictures and the timeline.

 

yeah, but Brussels vs Chicago in January...
I'm waiting until above-freezing temps to try this (for a few reasons)


and those pics were AWESOME