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.

Barrel Notes: Day 60

Wow, already 2 months in.  Last time I took a gravity reading was Day 9, so I thought the 2 month mark was a good time to do it again.

Gravity reading: 1.010

This is about what I expected.  What I didn't expect was the color of the beer.  If you compare that to when I got the wort (far right in this image), you can see there has been a huge change.  It use to be dark brown, and now is orange.  I wasn't sure why this happened, so I asked expert home brewer Jay (aka Fear025):

The wort was dark because there were caramelized particles suspended in the liquid. As time passed, gravity pulled those particles downward to settle at the bottom of the vessel.

Pretty simple answer really.  I wasn't really worried about the color, but it is nice to know it will clear up to a more traditional lambic color.

Now on to the pellicle, here is a picture of it from today:

This I find odd.  Compare that picture to the image from Day 34, and then to the one from Day 22.  Its almost as if the pellicle is clearing up.  I have read that the brett will eat the pellicle, but I thought that is something that would occur very late in the aging process and at a minute scale.  Any ideas as to what is going on?  The only other thing I can think of is that the weather has been very warm lately, which should have kicked in the pedio stage.  Is this the beginnings of my beer turning "ropy"?  I hope so!

Barrel Notes: Day 34

Checking in on the pellicle again.  Here is how it looks:

Comparing that to the previous picture, the pellicle has gotten denser over the last couple weeks.  The aroma hasn't changed much, but I am getting a bit of an almost tropical fruitiness.  Still very funky and still quite a bit of lacto.  It's encouraging to have a wide range of aromas already.