Minimalist Lambic: Fermentation

We had some extra lambic wort at the end of the O'so brewday, so a few of us filled up carboys to take home.  Instead of buying a lambic blend yeast, I thought I would try something new; I wanted to try fermenting the wort as simply as possible.  The 4 main players in Lambic fermentation are Saccro, Brett, Lacto, and Pedio.  Between the two bacteria strains (Lacto & Pedio), I have read that Pedio does the lion's share of creating the acidity in Lambic, so I chose that one.  When Pedio is fermenting, it gives off diacetyl, which is a buttery off flavor.  Brett however eats the diacetyl compound and therefor should always be used in conjunction with Pedio.  So, between the two yeast options (Saccro & Brett), I really don't have a choice but to use Brett, although that is what I would have picked anyway.  The strain of Brett I picked was Brett Brux, as I like the barnyard funk flavors and thought it would complement fruit additions later on should I choose to add any.

I pitched the Brett & Pedio into my 6 gallon Better Bottle full of Lambic wort on Sunday.  On Tuesday noticeable fermentation started.  Here is what it looks like:

Lambic fermentation with only Brett B & Pedio

Once the primary settles down, I'll go put this next to my pilot Lambic barrel to sit for at least a year.  I'm looking forward to watching the pellicle and potential ropy stage through this carboy.  It will be much easier to see and document than oak barrels have been.  I'm also looking forward to seeing how Marc decided to ferment his portion of lambic.

O'so Collaboration: Brewday

Jump to:
Installing a Drain Port
Filling the Barrels

We were at the O'so brewery at 6:00am, and didn't finish until 11:00pm.  It was a long brew-day to say the least. Marc and his head brewer, Mike, had planned and prepped the turbid mash schedule as best as one could, now it was time to actually go through the steps and learn/adjust along the way.  It was incredible watching these two brew an unfamiliar style, yet hit every target number along the way.  We had some troubles with the grain mill at the start of the day, and the initial dough in was very challenging, but after that, the process went nearly perfect.

Richard adding rice hulls to the Mash Tun.

I tried to take pictures throughout the day, but many of them didn't turn out because of the steam coming out of the kettle.  There was a student there filming and photographing the process, so I may get some of his pictures soon.

Protein cake.

I believe the above picture was taken during the final transfer of the turbid mash.  As you can see, a large layer of protein has developed on top of the grain bed (even separating away from the wall).  The next picture is the wort transferring over to the boil kettle.  They were very happy with how clean it was!

Transferring to boil kettle.

As the kettle was being filling, they started the boil.  It took nearly an hour to fill the kettle with 35 barrels of wort, and it was boiling the entire time.  During that time we added the hops.  We used 40 pounds of 5 year old Liberty hops.  They smelled like a hockey locker room.

5 year old hops

Some people assume that Lambics don't have much hops in them, but there are IPA's that use less hops than Lambics.  The only difference is that they have been aged, which removes the bitter flavor of the hops, but retains its antimicrobial power.  The boil went for 4 hours.  Then the wort was transferred over to the whirlpool and left the hops behind.  Wow do those hops ever expand!

Hops at the bottom of the Boil Kettle

At this point that hops mass is about 8" deep and absorbing nearly 3 barrels of the wort.  Marc cleaned this tank the following day and told me they had puffed up and it was about 2 feet deep!

Installing the Drain Port:

While much of the brewing process was going on, I was further prepping the barrels.  We had to install the drain port prior to filling these barrels.  I talked to Vinnie at Russian River and he sent me over the instructions on how to do it.  Its always nerve racking drilling a whole into the barrel, so it was nice to know the exact method.

Drilling a 15/16" hole into the barrel head.

The hole is about 2 fingers up from the edge.

Insert a standard Belgian cork into the hole.

It is quite simple.  The French Oak is pretty hard and can be a bit of a pain to drill through.  We tried a couple different ways of inserting the cork on our practice 2x4.  It is possible to hammer the cork in, but if you use a simple floor model corker, you can pull the handle part way so it just compresses the cork.  The cork has a bit of memory at that compressed state giving you enough time to easily slide the cork into the hole.  It will then quickly expand back to its normal state creating a very tight seal in the barrel.

Filling the Barrels:

So with the barrels prepped and the wort ready, it was time to fill the barrels.  Initially our plan was to short fill the barrels and then after the primary had finished, to rack over the contents of two of the barrels to top off the other 12.  As it happened, we had yielded more wort that estimated, and so we filled all 14 barrels to the top (stopping half way to add the yeast).

Filling the barrel with lambic wort.

Since this is the first use for these barrels, we needed to add a blend of yeast/bacteria to the barrel, which we did half way through filling each (1 liter of wort per barrel).  Future uses of these barrels will not require yeast to be pitched.  We used the same East Coast Yeast blend that I used for my pilot barrel.  I can't stress enough how happy I have been with this yeast.  Thank you Al!

Adding East Coast Yeast lambic blend to the barrel.

And so, 17 hours after we started, we have 14 barrels of lambic sitting over the drain waiting for fermentation to start.

I figured it would be 2 days before the fermentation kicked off, but Marc sent me this picture the next day:

Fermentation in less than 12 hours!

O'so Collaboration

Over the weekend I went up to start the preparation work for what will become a collaborative O'so/Funk Factory lambic project.

(click picture to visit the O'so website)

I arrived Friday evening to 14, French Oak, used wine barrels delivered and waiting for me.

While I had the barrels on end, I decided to quick apply a stencil I made up for them.  Its a simplified version of the FF logo, and creates 4 spaces to record the fill date.  With that done, it was time to line up the barrels and fill them with water.

Soaking the barrel overnight was done for two reasons.  First, it will swell the barrel ensuring there are no leaks when it comes time to fill it with lambic wort.  Secondly, it will extract some of the wine flavor from the barrel.  In brewing lambic, you want as neutral of a barrel as possible.  When I arrived to the very last barrel and filled it up, I noticed it wasn't holding water.  On the barrel head opposite to me, it was gushing out water along the bottom croze.  I left the hose valve 1/3 of the way open, and it was losing water faster than the hose filled it.  Unfortunately, I think that barrel will need to be replaced even though it did swell up overnight.  I just don't have any confidence in a barrel that struggles that much to hold water that it will limit O2 permeation sufficiently.

The next morning I had to empty the barrels.  Moving around a 60 gallon filled barrel is no easy task, and in fact took me most the morning to empty all 14 barrels.  It wasn't until nearly noon that I started steaming the barrels.

This is the same steamer I used before.  Behind the barrel in the picture being steamed are 4 that I had already completed.  You can see the bung is in and seals the barrel.  As the steam cools down, it creates a vacuum that will extract more wine from the wood.  Once I finished with all the barrels, I gave them a final hot water rinse and sealed them again.  The air inside was hot from the water, so they will be vacuum sealed until the day we go to fill them with wort.

Sikaru Update

My barrel of "Sikaru" that I added dates to on Day 22 has a problem; acetobacter.  Acetobacter creates acetic acid, which in small amounts can be acceptable in lambic, but when oxygen is plentiful, the acetobacter will create too much.  This is exactly what has happened.

About 4 months ago you may remember that I waxed this barrel fearing it was getting too much oxygen.  I only waxed the top half where the head space is thinking the rest of the barrel should be fine.  Well, I was wrong.  This isn't to say you can't age a beer in a 5 gallon barrel.  My problem is that I got this barrel (for free) when I bought the 60 gallon barrel from a local winery.  He had kept the 5 gallon barrel on a display shelf for a couple years, so it was in very poor condition.  It wouldn't even hold water.  It took me a week to swell the barrel to a state that it could hold water.  Before filling, I steam cleaned the barrel thoroughly.  I assumed it was fine at that point, but I now believe the staves, while water tight, were not tight enough to slow O2 permeability sufficiently and there remained too much acetobacter in the wood even after the steaming process.  If you are going to use a barrel (of any size) make sure it has been properly maintained.  Also, if you are using a 5 or 10 gallon barrel, I would still recommend waxing the outsides to cut O2 permeation to a level comparable with the large 60 gallon barrels.

Last month I started a discussion on RateBeer talking about American Lambics vs. Belgian Lambics.  In my opinion, a higher acetic acid flavor profile is the norm from American Lambic producers.  It creates a more intensely sour flavored beer.  With the relatively young lambic drinkers in America, there is a mind set that the more sour a beer is means the better the beer is.  American brewers know this and some even keep a "sour barrel" handy that they blend into the final batch to increase the sour profile.  However, Belgian Lambics do not have much of any acetic acid flavor in their lambics.  I don't know if they go as far as to call it an off flavor, but I personally do.  I don't care for it in my lambics.

At this point, this barrel is useless to me.  With a healthy supply of O2, acetobacter will continue to convert alcohol into acetic acid.  Allowed to continue, I will have vinegar.  Maybe I'll make a mustard with it?

Barrel Notes: Day 102

The main point of this update was to check on the pellicle.  As I mentioned in Barrel Notes: Day 60, the pellicle had appeared to be clearing up.

To recap, here is the progression of the pellicle:

Day 17

Day 22

Day 34

Day 60

And now today:

Day 102

It appears that things are starting to develop again on the surface.  I'm still not sure what is going on.  I like that it appears to be forming a pellicle again as I intend to age this barrel for 3 years and a strong pellicle will help cut any O2 exposure in the head space.  I spoke with Vinnie at Russian River before I got home today, so only had the first 4 pictures to go off of.  He had some good things to say, but no real definitive "this is what's going on" answer.  He recommended asking the folks on Babble Belt, so that's what I'll do.  Feel free to read and join in on the conversation over there.

I didn't take a sample out this time, but it smells fantastic...

Jean-Xavier Guinard's book "Lambic"

Jean-Xavier Guinard's book "Lambic":

Long since out of print, however is still regarded as the definitive text on Lambic.  Currently it is very expensive to get a copy of this book, but I was lucky enough to snag a copy off of eBay for $3 from a seller who didn't know what he had.

I've just started reading this book and I wanted to type out the "Etymology of Terms" section for you all.

According to a writer from the Tirailleur newspaper in 1883, the term lambic has its origin in the peasants' belief that lambic, being very harsh to the palate, was a distilled beverage.  The peasants would often call it the alambic, in reference to the distilling apparatus.  Belgian historian Godefroid Kurth agrees that lambic derives from alambic, but according to him, alambic was the old name for the mashing vessel used to brew lambic beer.  The dictionary of the Academy of Gastronomy suggests that the etymology of the term lambic is found in the Latin verb lambere meaning to sip. It could also be that lambic, which often appears as lambiek, is deribed from the village of Lembeek in Payottenland.

As for the term faro, it comes from the Spanish words farro meaning barley wine, a wine from Portugal, or a lighthouse.  Indeed, Belgian rumor has it that after drinking a few pints of faro, people would become very enlightening.  Faro was the main drink in Belgium in the nineteenth century.  In 1855, a two-cent increase in the price of a glass of faro almost caused a riot among "Brusseleers" for whom the daily mug of faro was a necessity.  A group of actors from famous cabarets even staged a play to denounce the price hike.

The gueuze appellation was born in Lembecq, a small town outside of Brussels, which was very fortunate not to have to pay any excise tax on the brews it produced until 1860.  In 1870, the mayor of Lembecq, who owned a brewery, hired an engineer by the name of Cayaerts.  Together, they decided to apply the methode Champenoise to referment lambic beer in a bottle.  Gueuze was born.  This new invention was called "lambic from the gueux" because the liberal ideas of the mayor were those of the political party of the gueux.  The lambic of gueux soon became known as gueuze.  According to the Dutch writer Anton Van Duinkerken, the term gueuze more simply originated during the War of the Gueux in the sixteenth century.

The "American Lambic"

The beer I make follows the traditional lambic process in every way possible without actually being located in Belgium. As Americans we want to be able to classify every beer into a style category. If one was to try classifying my beer, they may find the lambic category a more accurate title than the generic "AWA".

Some view lambic as more than a word to describe a style, but a hallowed Belgian product. Why it is so holy, and how it became sanctified, I do not understand. Many claim terroir, the history, or a unique microflora, but I have found those claims have little base in reality or the modern production of lambic within Belgium.

Part of me wants to believe that lambic is a sacred term. I don't like that Lindemans/Timmermans/Mort Subite uses it on their pasteurized, back-sweetened, fruit syrup, ersatz "lambic". I wouldn't categorize that stuff as lambic, but that is because I don't like their production method for those beers. I'm disappointed that there hasn't been more done to protect the term within Belgium.

In an attempt to half avoid the issue, half to show respect, I try not to use the term "lambic". I will use the term "lambic-style" or "American Lambic" when asked to classify the beer, because that is how I would classify it. Its much easier than saying "Spontaneously fermented ale brewed in Wisconsin following the traditional methods of Belgian lambic brewers".

Call it what you want. Classify it as you see fit. I don't really care as long as you enjoy it and understand how it was made.