Organic lambic one year later

By bwyker

With VeganMofo over, time for quick homebrew update.

On November 7th of last year, I brewed my first lambic.  About three weeks before the deadline for the National Organic Brewing Challenge, I bottled up 1/2 gallon of the nearly 1 year-old organic lambic, with the intention of entering it into the comp. Before I sent it out, however, I sampled a bottle with Kevin the weekend of our Stone IRS tasting. I was very disappointed to find the beer was flat, vegetal tasting, hazy…a drain pour. Needless to say, it did not get entered.  As the samples from the fermenter tasted awesome, I felt it must have been a shitty bottling job and/or it just needed more time.  It was probably too soon to open a carbonating bottle.  I left the other bottles to sit for a few more weeks, then, on the beer’s birthday, I gave it another try. Wow! I was simply blown away. VERY happy with the results.

The appearance is amazing. Brilliantly clear, golden straw-colored body, with a delicate head of tiny bubbles. The aroma and flavors are very similar: funk/mustyness, lots of grape notes and a touch of pineapple/citrus. Definitely sour/tart, but not overwhelmingly so. Dry finish,  that makes it very enjoyable to drink.

Right off the bat, I found it to be a lot like the flavors of Cuvee de Castleton, without the sweetness and complexity of Cuvee’s muscat grape addition. Yesterday, I brought a bottle to a sour beer tasting with some friends that are all very familiar with the Cuvee de Castleton. They too got the same impression. Among the 20+ sours we had (including some of the greats, like Lambicus Dexterius and  Isabelle Proximus), it held its ground. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

A few notes about this beer worth mentioning. First off, I think the complicated mash schedule is worth the effort. It seems to me, this gave the microbes a lot to chew up and resulted in a very nice fermentation. Also, I did not use any primary saccharomyces strain, with the exception of the Belgian ale yeast in the Wyeast Lambic Blend. Traditional lambic is not made with a primary saccharomyces strain, so I choose to ignore the advice of some expert homebrewers like JZ, who say to start the fermentation with a neutral yeast strain. Instead, in an attempt to mimic what would happen when wort is added to inoculated barrels at lambic breweries, I simply pitched the pure culture lambic blend and the dregs at the start of the fermentation process. It took a bit longer to get going, but it definitely did not have a problem attenuating. The beer is already below 1.000 and is basically living off of the unconverted starches at this point. I believe this gave the beer the signature aged lambic complexity earlier on in the process.

Finally, once the beer was fermenting, it never moved. Again, like traditional lambic, it was never moved off of the yeast cake, as this provided a food source for the microbes as well. A year of aging and absolutely no off flavors from autolysis. During the bottling process, I did move it into a keg. With the increased headspace and fallen pellicle, I want to be able to keep the oxygen out of the beer by purging the keg with CO2.

I intended to brew another lambic this year to, eventually, blend into a geuze. However, I don’t know how much longer I can take living in Albany. I need to return to the civilized world, where a vegan who doesn’t drive isn’t considered a complete weirdo (i.e., Portland). As I can’t move a carboy of aging lambic, I probably will not commit to the geuze and will bottle this lambic up in the next few months.

At some point – perhaps the next Organic Challenge – I’ll enter it into a competition for more objective feedback. Anyway, I think this is a solid recipe, perhaps my best so far.

Organic Wet Hop IPA

By bwyker

The warm, sunny days we had in the Northeast this summer resulted in very happy hop plants. I’ve picked several pounds of crystal, centennial and chinook hops from the plants in my community garden and have a fair amount of nugget waiting to be picked.  Without a doubt the best year yet, both in terms of quantity and quality. Now the challenge will be using them up!

Before I picked and dried the hops, I decided I would  make another attempt at a wet hop/fresh hop beer with the freshly picked chinooks and crystals. Commercial examples of wet hop beers have been popping up over the years, but since they can only be brewed this time of year and take a significant amount of hops that have to be used very quickly, it’s not too often that you will find one on tap at your local pub. Like most things related to hops (and craft beer in general), Sierra Nevada is the originator of the style. Without a doubt, the best I’ve had is the Estate Ale – made with organically grown hops and barley grown at the brewery. Taking a few tips from an interview with Brewmaster Steve Dresler on the Brewing Network – including the 5 to 1 ratio of wet to dry hops – I came up with the following recipe. I only used the wet hops, picked about an hour before brewing, for the late additions in the kettle. I stuffed them into cheesecloth sacks and used some stainless steel washers to weigh them down (like this), which is quite the challenge with so many whole leaf hops. Also, I realize I used a fairly dark crystal malt (120L), which is unusual for an IPA. It was the only organic crystal malt I had on hand. I used just a touch for coloring, which I think worked out fine.

5 gallon extract batch with specialty grains:

OG: 1.055 FG: 1.017 SRM: 6.2 IBU: (roughly 50??)

Grains:
6 lbs. Briess organic DME
.22 lbs. organic crystal 120L
.60 lbs. organic cane sugar

Hops:
1 oz dried organic whole leaf Centennial (~8.5% AA) at 60 mins.
12.5 oz wet/fresh organic whole leaf Chinook (~10.5% AA) at 15 mins.
6.25 oz wet/fresh organic whole leaf Chinook (~10.5% AA) at 0 mins.
3 oz  wet/fresh organic whole leaf Crystal (~3.5% AA) at 0 mins.
1 oz dried organic Chinook (~10.5% AA) dry hop
1 oz dried organic Crystal (~3.5% AA) dry hop

Yeast:
Fermentis US-05 Cali Ale

Place the crystal malt in a grain sack and steep in 6.5 gallons of 150 degree water for approximately 20 minutes. Bring the water up to 170, remove the grains, then bring water to a boil. Turn off the heat, add the DME and sugar, then return to heat. When wort reaches a boil, begin adding hops as indicated above. When the boil is complete, transfer 5 gallons to the fermenter and chill to 65 , pitch yeast, ferment at 68 for about one week. At this point I added half of the dry hops for a week, filtered, then added the other half of the dry hops to the keg after it carbonated. Alternatively, you can just add all of the dry hops and condition for another week or two.

I think this was about as fresh as it comes. Bursting with “chewy” (like biting into a hop cone, without the bitterness) wet hop flavor and aroma. I feel it was in large part due to the chinooks, which were dripping with oil when they came off of the vine. Chinooks are rarely considered for more than bittering in recipe formulation and I think that is a mistake, especially when you want a fresh, citrusy flavor and aroma. They pack quite a punch and the crystals give the beer a subtle, yet very nice earthy/floral touch. I was very happy with the results and received a lot of positive feedback from friends; however, it did not place in the National Organic Brewing Challenge. Still waiting for the score sheets – I’ll update with judge comments when I get them. Regardless, I loved the beer and kicked the keg in just a few days (sharing with friends, of course). Can’t wait to brew again next year.

Update: Scored a 31 in the Organic Brewing Challenge. Not too bad I guess, considering the third place winner for the category (Specialty Beer, Category 23) scored a 34. The judges comments were generally favorable, with the only flaw being that it wasn’t bitter enough for an IPA. I would definitely agree with that. Nowadays, I tend to brew hoppy beers with the focus being more on the flavor and aroma hops than on the bittering hops. Also, in the case of homegrown hops, it’s difficult to get the IBUs down during the recipe formulation. Anyway, one judge mentioned that if the beer were entered as an American Pale Ale, it would have done far better. I’ll give it a shot as an APA in the Knickerbocker Battle of the Brews.

Organic Lambic

By bwyker

Drinking traditional lambic always seems to result in me saying “I’d like to brew one of these some day.” The complicated turbid mash and the very long aging have kept me from actually trying.  After reading Jeff Sparrow’s book Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition I couldn’t put it off any longer. I finally broke down and brewed one.

To brew a lambic you have to change the way you think about brewing. Just about every part of the process violates a common brewing rule. The grist is typically made up of a large amount of unmalted grain – usually about 30% unmalted wheat. The idea behind this is the unmalted grain will leave unconverted starches in your beer, which the microorganisms (namely, Brettanomyces) will survive on throughout the long aging process. The mash schedule commonly used breaks down proteins to ensure you get that large amount of starch from the wheat. Sparge water is typically near boiling, with little concern about stripping tannins off of the grain. Hops are only used for preservatives and should be low-alpha and aged (never fresh). Finally, lambics are intentionally inoculated with the very same microorganisms we typically work so hard to keep out. Then the waiting begins.. at least a year for an unblended lambic and up to three years for a gueuze.

So, here is my recipe:

Grain:

7 lbs.  Gambrinus Organic Pilsner Malt
4.5 lbs. Organic  flaked wheat

Hops:
2 oz Organic Belgian Saaz (2.1 % AA) [2006 crop. Got these from the close out section on the 7 Bridges website, but they appear to be sold out]

Yeast: Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend + dregs from an organic berliner I did with Wyeast 3763 Roselare Blend and the dregs of a Boon Kriek + dregs of Cuvee de Castleton

OG:1.058 FG: ? (should get pretty low) IBU:~5 SRM:3.9

I tried to stick to as many of the traditional methods as I could, beginning with the mash schedule. I did not, technically, do a turbid mash, but I followed the suggestions for a shortcut from Frank Boon, via Ryan Brews. Here was the schedule:

  • Dough in @ 86 with 3 gallons of water.
  • Collect about 1.5 gallons wort and bring that to a boil.

  • Meanwhile, dough in again with another 3 gallons to get mash up to 113 ( I added 118 degree water, based on calculation from this site. Hit it spot on.) Rest 15 minutes.
  • Bring up to 122 and rest for another 15 minutes.
  • Add boiling wort back to mash to bring up to 149. Rest for 45 minutes.
  • Here, I’ve read you should bring the mash up to 158 for another 30 minutes. I actually ended up higher in the previous step  (154), so I just kept it at that temp for an hour.
  • Bring up to 168 for mashout (I actually might have skipped this)
  • Collect wort, then sparge with 4.5 gallons of 190 degree water.

I had outstanding efficiency (89%) and ended up with about 7.5 gallons of wort. Boiled for 30 minutes, added the hops, then boiled for another 75 minutes. Chilled to 65, transfered about 5 gallons to a glass carboy and pitched yeast.

It took about two days to show any signs of life, but once it got going a healthy fermentation has been going strong. It’s been fermenting between 66 and 68 for the past two weeks. A film called a pellicle should form soon,which will protect the beer from oxygen/mold as the brett eats through the rest of the dextrins and starches. I will probably bottle a few after a year and keep the rest going for the next two years to blend into a gueuze. Hoping to make the fall lambic an annual tradition.