# Kriek Recipe



## *hop*cone* (5/10/06)

Can any one direct me to a good recipe for "Kriek" ? Furthermore can anyone tell me about this beer. I guess it is a lambic of some type, forgive my ignorance please.

Cheers,

*Hop*CoNe*


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## Hubby (5/10/06)

Here's a couple of quick links ... HBD - Lambic, Wikipedia - Kriek, Lambic Brewing and The Lambic Beers. I'm sure others would have much better info and a few recipes. Have you looked at the recipes under Cat's Meow - Ch 9 - Belgian, German, Brown, Old, and Scottish Ales?


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## Malnourished (5/10/06)

Well... you're kind of asking a whole lot of questions here, but let's see...

Kriek is obviously the word for cherry, so any beer made with cherries can be called "Kriek." Most (actually all of them, I think) lambic producers make a kriek using their lambic base, Liefmans and Cnudde do and Rodenbach used to make kriek with their Flemish sour beer as a base and then there's a myriad of other kriek permutations... and that's just Belgium!

That said, I would assume you are asking because you tried Belle Vue Kriek, or perhaps Timmermans. These are pasteurised, sweetened and (mostly) artificially flavoured, which makes them very hard to replicate for the home brewer. 

If you want to go down the "authentic" p-Lambic road, then you'll want to read Wild Brews and Lambic by Guinard, and check out the p-Lambic digest and The Liddil Lambic Lesson. It's a far too detailed process to get into in one post, but be warned these beers are _years _ in the making. 

The road I would advise you to go down is to brew a base beer of your choice - witbier, hefeweizen, American wheat, blond ale for example - and add cherries to secondary. You can make the base beer sweet or dry depending on what you want the beer to end up like, just remember that fruit is very fermentable, so the cherries won't make your beer sweet at all. And cherries are a real pain in the arse to work with, they clog up your taps/tubing pretty easily.

I've heard of people using canned cherries from the supermarket and stuff like that, but I've never done that. I usually pick Morello cherries at a pick-your-own place when they're in season (Dec-Jan) and use them. They have quite an intense flavour and acidity. You could use eating cherries but I can't see them being as good as Morellos, plus Morellos are about half the price. I use about 2kg/L - it's a lot but it's worth it.


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## gonzo (5/10/06)

You can buy KRIEK and FRAMBOISE kits from you local homebrew shop, only catch is they are around $45 but its supposed to be the actual kit made by the orignal makers of the beer


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## Hillbilly (5/10/06)

Gonzo said:


> You can buy KRIEK and FRAMBOISE kits from you local homebrew shop, only catch is they are around $45 but its supposed to be the actual kit made by the orignal makers of the beer



And that's only to make 12 liters :blink: 
Made one of these " Brewferm / kriek " kits with candy sugar but is still maturing, will let you know how it turned out in a few weeks.
Hillbilly.


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## Stuster (5/10/06)

Malnourished said:


> I use about 2kg/L - it's a lot but it's worth it.



Great info, Mal. I'm just wondering about this ratio as I'm hoping to turn some Am. wheat into cherry wheat. Seems a lot of cherries. :unsure:


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## *hop*cone* (5/10/06)

Wow, thanks all. Such a great depth of knowledge here on AHB. Looks like a great start point. 

Cheers,

*HOP*CoNe*


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## berapnopod (5/10/06)

Stuster said:


> Malnourished said:
> 
> 
> > I use about 2kg/L - it's a lot but it's worth it.
> ...



2kg/l???

That means 40kgs of cherris in a 20 litre batch?

I think Malnourished meant 2kg per 20 litre batch, which sounds about right as I believe 3kg per 20l is typical for a kriek.

Berp.


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## Wortgames (5/10/06)

Morello cherries are surprisingly cheap in jars - check your local supermarkets, but I can usually find them for about $3 for a big jar. Not too many added surprises either, a tiny bit of sugar and that's it.

If you want to cheat and get somewhere near that kriek flavour without all the effort, a few mls of lactic acid in the brew will give you a cheap lambic tartness if the cherries don't dry the beer out enough.

You'll probably want to boil them and skim off the crud to keep the beer looking good and minimise haze.


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## Stuster (5/10/06)

That's what I was thinking too, berp. :lol: 

Planning on doing 10L with 1kg of cherries. Just need to get the cherries.


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## Malnourished (6/10/06)

I was wondering if anyone would notice that! I don't think 2kg of cherries would fit into a 1L volume!

It should be 2kg/5L, ie. 400g/L.

I wouldn't consider 2kg in 20L anywhere near enough, but perhaps that's just me. Cantillon uses 300g/L in their Lou Pp range, and a bit above 200g/L in their regular range. I seem to recall reading that they can go as high as 500g/L but I can't recall where I read that now.


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## voota (10/11/06)

I was at the Cantillon brewery last week and the brewer said he usually uses 300gms per litre in the Kriek, I cant remeber if it was a little more or a little less for the Lou Pepe range... anyway, I think the Cantillon lambics are a decent enough to aim to clone (thats an understatement).

I've got a Lambic style beer brewing away back in Australia at the moment, and will spilt my 20 litres into 10l of gueuze, and 10 of kriek, using 3 kg of fruit (ie. 300gm L). 
The beer is about to celebrate its 18th month in the fermenter and I'm getting excitied about having my very first unblended gueuze, will let you know how it goes in a few months.


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## bconnery (10/11/06)

voota said:


> I was at the Cantillon brewery last week



You lucky lucky lucky lucky bastard! It's been some five years now since I was very very very fortunate enough to visit there. The Rose de Gambrinus was and still is a beer that just blew me away. 

Mind you lots of people would look at me strangely when I said that my favourite beer ever was a rasberry one... It has since been overtaken, perhaps slightly, but that's another story. 

I was lucky enough to have some gueuzes on my recent trip to the UK but they weren't quite the same as having them at the source!





voota said:


> I've got a Lambic style beer brewing away back in Australia at the moment, and will spilt my 20 litres into 10l of gueuze, and 10 of kriek, using 3 kg of fruit (ie. 300gm L).
> The beer is about to celebrate its 18th month in the fermenter and I'm getting excitied about having my very first unblended gueuze, will let you know how it goes in a few months.



Very very curious to hear about how this goes, what your recipe and method was etc. I'm sure there's a thread or details about it but keep us posted anyway. 

I'd like to have a go at this myself one day but I think it might be a project I'll spend some time preparing for rather than diving into as I do most other homebrew related ones...


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## bindi (10/11/06)

bconnery said:


> thread or details about it but keep us posted anyway.
> 
> I'd like to have a go at this myself one day but I think it might be a project I'll spend some time preparing for rather than diving into as I do most other homebrew related ones...




Bugger that  PM sent with a recipie you can play with, go for it.
I will post it here after I get more feed back on it, I like it others may differ <_< .


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## shotduck (10/11/06)

About four months ago I bottled/kegged 50 litres of a pLambic that I had fermenting for about two years. I used 60% raw wheat 40% pils, about 150g of some very old fuggles and the Wyeast lambic blend. I was quite happy with the brett. funk that I got out of it, but it could have done with a _lot_ more sourness. Part of it was kegged as a straight unblended pLambic, and the other half was distrubuted to roughly 10 litres of Cassis and 20 litres of Kriek. I used concentrates for the Cassis (blackcurrents being fairly hard to find) and was - as expected - pretty dissapointed with the result. I found the amount of sugars in the concentrate brought the alcohol up to quite a noticable level - fairly hot and quite out of style. I used jars of morello cherries acquired at the local supermarket for the Kriek, but apparently nowhere near enough. After four months on the cherries (about four and a half kilos) the resulting brew is a lovely deep red, with very little cherry flavour.

Things I would do differently next time would include not relying on the Lambic Blend as the source of yeast/bacteria, instead utilising the individual cultures one can buy and pitching them at around the time they typically become active in the brew. A fairly sterile approach to what is supposed to be a spontaneously fermented brew, but I would personally rather brew a nice example of the end result than spend years relying once again on chance.

I fermented this for roughly three weeks in plastic before transfering it to a 55 litre keg that I converted specially for the purpose. I believe this may have removed a lot of the bacteriae lying dormant in the sediment layer so I would refrain from racking pLambics in the future and stick solely with the stainless fermenter, unless someone who has actually been to Belgium and spoken to the brewers there would recommend otherwise. I would also place a single french oak stave inside the fermenter... something noticably lacking in my first attempt.

As for the fruit additions; I will never, ever use concentrates again, nor skimp on the fruit additions. From my experience I would say that Malnourished's example of 2kg/G is a nice ballpark figure. However, I would likely head towards the 3kg/G mark, leaving some straight pLambic aside for blending later if you have gone over the mark (at the very least, you will have some straight pLambic to drink if you don't overdo the fruit... never a bad thing  )

Finally, one thing I have been contemplating is building a solero type system of the large 55L kegs. I would begin a batch every six months or so, topping up the kegs as I go and kegging/bottling/racking-onto-fruit 25 litres from the bottom keg each time I transfer a fresh batch into the top keg (if that even makes sense). A fair bit of effort, true, but it may well be worth it in the end.


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## Darren (10/11/06)

Cheap cheeris can be found at cherry farms. They can only sell "perfect" cherries. I got about 10 kilos of cherries a couple of years ago for nothing like this. Now destemming and removing the stones from 10kg cherries is not fun.

As for the cherry lambic, nice deep red colour but is toooooooo sour. Would rip the enamel off your teeth if you drank it straight.

One day when i get some time i might try and blend it.

cheers

Darren


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## voota (10/11/06)

Well, my method was very basic... As this was my first attempt at a pLambic I thought it would be best to play it simple, then change the method after I see what comes out. 

I used a simple 70% powells ale malt, and 30% unmalted wheat grist, starting the mash at 62deg for 40 mins, then to 68 for another 40 mins, then a mash out at my usual 78-80deg. 
The hops were some old homegrown POR which had been sitting around and had nothing to offer in the way of flavour or bitterness. I used 40gms for my 20l batch. 

After chilling, I put it straight into my glass fermenter, no primary ferment. Aparently glass or SS is the go, beacuse of the oxidisation problems with long term storage in plastic. 
The yeast was Wyeast lambic blend, no other bacteria was added. I also put in a couple of bits of an old french oak barrel. I'm undecided as to which type of cherry I will use, all I know is they will be fresh... and dosed at a rate of 300g /l.


And yes the Cantillon brewery was very nice, the smell in the air was soo good.


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## Malnourished (11/11/06)

The Shot Duck said:


> I was quite happy with the brett. funk that I got out of it, but it could have done with a _lot_ more sourness...
> Things I would do differently next time would include not relying on the Lambic Blend as the source of yeast/bacteria...
> I would refrain from racking pLambics in the future...
> I would also place a single french oak stave inside the fermenter...


Your experience sounds exactly like mine.

I'm pretty sure the Wyeast blend doesn't contain pediococcus, which is probably why the beer doesn't get all that sour. See my post in the link for Raj Apte's suggesting for souring using the Wyeast blend.

I'm not sure that adding oak will really add much. Lambics never taste like oak to me, the barrels are used because they harbour bacteria/wild yeasts and because they permit oxygen very slowly. An oak stave wouldn't have any of those advantages, but it wouldn't hurt either.


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## voota (13/11/06)

Malnourished or anyone who can help, I'm now quite frightened that my plambic will not turn out sour enough... Is it worth adding some pediococcus now? or has too much nutrient been used up already in the ferment for it to take off? 

Cheers, Chris


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## Malnourished (14/11/06)

voota said:


> Malnourished or anyone who can help, I'm now quite frightened that my plambic will not turn out sour enough... Is it worth adding some pediococcus now? or has too much nutrient been used up already in the ferment for it to take off?


I have no idea. I tried something similar by chucking some crushed malt in a thermos of unboiled wort for a while and then adding that, but it didn't seem to make much difference. Seeing as you're fermenting in glass and used only the Wyeast blend you might be alright... but I dunno.

In my experience Morello cherries add quite a bit of tartness, so they might be a good way to boost the acid if it turns out too soft. Blending with a quicker, Berliner weisse-type sour ale might work too.

It's the unpredictability of the whole process that has really turned me off the whole thing. Getting your hands on authentic lambics around here is bloody hard, but I making the stuff is 10x harder I reckon.


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## shotduck (14/11/06)

Malnourished said:


> Getting your hands on authentic lambics around here is bloody hard, but I making the stuff is 10x harder I reckon.


Too right! Add to that the two years before you bottle it, and you've got a loooong time waiting for a beer that, when placed next to other beers you make in a matter of weeks, pales in comparison. On the other hand, if you get it right... :beerbang: :beerbang: :beerbang: 

Cheers,
TSD


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## voota (14/11/06)

Malnourished said:


> I have no idea. I tried something similar by chucking some crushed malt in a thermos of unboiled wort for a while and then adding that, but it didn't seem to make much difference. Seeing as you're fermenting in glass and used only the Wyeast blend you might be alright... but I dunno.


I think I'll probably leave it, its probably a bit much for my lambic minder back in Oz to be able to do, but thanks anyway.



Malnourished said:


> It's the unpredictability of the whole process that has really turned me off the whole thing. Getting your hands on authentic lambics around here is bloody hard, but I making the stuff is 10x harder I reckon.


I hope I don't feel the same way after this one comes through, that article you linked to a few posts ago really got me interested... I dream of having 10 fermenters of differently aged plambics going at once and being able to blend and such, releasing a batch every 2-3 months. Though, reading that article it looks like you are right about the unpredictability, I can't imagine how devastating it would be to invest so much time, energy and space into something that is barely drinkable. 
We will wait and see...


edit. Just looking through some notes, and found that I have written that Cantillon uses 250gm of fruit per litre in the standard range, so I think the Lou Pepe range must be the ones with 300gm litre.


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## voota (16/11/06)

Have just been on the Wyeast website to find out what was actually in the blend I used... it looks like it contains pediococcus, so I don't know why your beer didn't get very sour. I guess that gives me some hope of a sourish plambic coming through...

http://www.wyeastlab.com/faqs/faqmain.htm


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## shotduck (16/11/06)

voota said:


> Have just been on the Wyeast website to find out what was actually in the blend I used... it looks like it contains pediococcus, so I don't know why your beer didn't get very sour. I guess that gives me some hope of a sourish plambic coming through...
> 
> http://www.wyeastlab.com/faqs/faqmain.htm


It boils down to the whole unpredictability of what is supposed to be a spontaneously fermented beer. The way I see it, the culture may have all the different types of bacteriae found in a fermenting lambic, but at what stage of the process did they draw the original culture? Perhaps pitching active pediococcus at the start of the ferment may cause unforseen problems with viability of that particular bacteria? Unless I am mis-reading the information contained in your link, the blend does not actually contain pediococcus...


> Our blend of strains comes from a Belgian brewery which is maintained with a mix of S. cerevisiae, B. bruxellensis, B. lambicus, S.delbruckii, and P. cerevisiae. As you can note, it does not contain some of the other yeast and bacteria found in some lambics.



... and it is sorely missing in several other bacteria and yeast which literature maintains should be present. I understand that the yeast was used in an award winning Gueuze, but to steal (and bastardise) an old saying; "a single winning beer does not a great culture make". After reading the information supplied by Wyeast on this culture, it makes me even more determined to use the individual yeast/bacteria cultures also available and pitch them at the (roughly) corresponding times during the ferment.

Cheers,
TSD

EDIT: Egh... after reading over that post, it seems about as easy to read as a legal contract... the result of several late nights at work catching up to me, I'm afraid.


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## Malnourished (16/11/06)

voota said:


> Have just been on the Wyeast website to find out what was actually in the blend I used... it looks like it contains pediococcus, so I don't know why your beer didn't get very sour.


Sorry. Evidently I meant Lactobacillus - I knew it was one of them. 

I don't think my experience is particularly exceptional, but I doubt it's the rule. The pLambic digest archives  are still messed up, unfortunately, otherwise I'd direct you there for more info. I might fire off an email to see what happened.

Dammit all this talk has me thinking of taking another crack at a plambic...


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## voota (17/11/06)

The Shot Duck said:


> Unless I am mis-reading the information contained in your link, the blend does not actually contain pediococcus...



I think P. cerevisiae. is a pediococcus strain. But I'm not too sure.


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## shotduck (17/11/06)

voota said:


> I think P. cerevisiae. is a pediococcus strain. But I'm not too sure.


Doh!
Quite right there Voota. Sorry about that :wacko: 

Cheers,
TSD


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## voota (17/11/06)

It seems like you were spot on about the addition times of the strains though... after a bit of reading, I'm not sure about adding the wyeast blend in my next brew, instead i'll try adding the individual strains at different times (whilst brewing 50L to compensate for the added yeast cost). This all may change if the current batch comes out well though!


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## Jye (25/2/07)

I picked up a jar of Morello cherries today and want to know if I should decant the liquid or chuck it it?

Im going to add the jar to 4L of American wheat just for kicks


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## Adamt (25/2/07)

I'd chuck it in, the juice is what you want out of it anyway, and quite a bit of it would've absorbed into the liquid.


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## Jye (25/2/07)

Cheers Adam, ended up adding the liquid, I was just a little worried about the sugar that is added to the jar.


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## bindi (25/2/07)

Jye said:


> I picked up a jar of Morello cherries today and want to know if I should decant the liquid or chuck it it?
> 
> Im going to add the jar to 4L of American wheat just for kicks




It will be fine Jye, I have added 3 and a half 700ml jars to 20L to a Belgiam Wit  no problem.


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## Screwtop (25/2/07)

bindi said:


> It will be fine Jye, I have added 3 and a half 700ml jars to 20L to a Belgiam Wit  no problem.




And it was bloody great! Sweet and sour beer :blink:

Edit: Swet to sweet


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## Ross (25/2/07)

Screwtop said:


> And it was bloody great! Sweet and sour beer :blink:
> 
> Edit: Swet to sweet



You should have made 20L Jye, it's a top brew :chug: 

cheers Ross


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## Jye (11/3/07)

Bottled it up today and got a grand total of 8 stubbies :lol: 

Reading with the hydrometer and refractometer give a FG of 1.006 and 6.1%  A couple more weeks and its time to sample :beerbang:


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## Ash in Perth (6/5/07)

After only 4 months in a fermenter, I dont tihnk the acidity would have completely developed. There are 3 phases of fermentation: ordinary yeast, wild yeast and then acid bacteria activity. The longer it is left the more acidic it gets.

Oxygen is a big factor. plastic fermenters will allow way too much oxygen in but SS or glass do not let enoug in. you need to mimic the amount of oxygen which passes through the wooden casks lambics were/are stored in. I tihnk glass with a certain type of bung is best but im not sure yet. still looking into it.

Ash (First post in a long time)


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## brendanos (6/5/07)

Good to have you back, Ash.

Going by the oxygen diffusion rates listen in Wild Brews. to replicate a wooden barrel (which can range from 0.5 cc/L/yr of oxygen for a v large barrel to 8.5 for a wine barrel) you need to be somewhere between a glass carboy with a wooden stopper (0.1 O2 cc/L/yr) and a glass carboy with a silicone stopper (17 O2 cc/L/yr).

A lot of people replace a rubber stopper and airlock with a piece of oak after primary fermentation has finished, generally from an old piece of furniture (chair leg etc) with plumbers tape or similar to get a seal with the glass. The only problem this may cause is damage to your carboy during temperature fluctuations/moisture effecting the cross dimensional area of the chair leg/piece of wood (ie cracked neck).

What I plan to do is bore a larger hole through a rubber stopper (maybe two thirds of the diameter) such that I can fit a narrow piece of oak through it and into the beer.


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## Stuster (6/5/07)

There's a thread here that may be of interest to you sour beer makers. It's about using the Roselare yeast, but some of the issues are the same.


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## chillamacgilla73 (23/5/07)

brendanos said:


> Good to have you back, Ash.
> 
> Going by the oxygen diffusion rates listen in Wild Brews. to replicate a wooden barrel (which can range from 0.5 cc/L/yr of oxygen for a v large barrel to 8.5 for a wine barrel) you need to be somewhere between a glass carboy with a wooden stopper (0.1 O2 cc/L/yr) and a glass carboy with a silicone stopper (17 O2 cc/L/yr).
> 
> ...


I have inherited a glass carboy with an old cork bung that I am going to use for my first attempt at a lambic in two weeks time. Ferment with S04 in plastic fermenter and transfer to glass carboy and pitch Wyeast lambic blend etc.
How do you reckon an old cork bung will fare in regards to O2 diffusion? Also, SWMBO is strongly 'encouraging' me to put the carboy under the house so it's out of the way. The temp shouldn't fluctuate too much although it may be a little cold - do you think the lower temp may not balance the wild yeast and bacteria activity? EG: Lower temp may encourage funk at the expense of sour etc. Any help would be appreciated.

cheers


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## chillamacgilla73 (24/5/07)

Bump.


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## Malnourished (24/5/07)

1. Perth can't be warmer than the Payottenland. The coldest part of your house would be best.

2. A cork bung sounds reasonable. Raj Apte's data (which was used in Wild Brews) can be found here.

3. Unsolicited advice I know, but I think you should reconsider the SO4 - pitch the Lambic Blend direct - and the racking - the bugs benefit from having the dormant yeast cells around.

I know I've posted this before but here's a great post from Raj Apte on the now defunct (again!) Lambic Digest - apologies for the formatting. It's how I plan to do my next p-lambic, if I ever get motivated again.



> Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 10:22:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Raj B Apte <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
> Subject: plambic inoculation
> 
> ...


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## chillamacgilla73 (24/5/07)

Malnourished said:


> 1. Perth can't be warmer than the Payottenland. The coldest part of your house would be best.
> 
> 2. A cork bung sounds reasonable. Raj Apte's data (which was used in Wild Brews) can be found here.
> 
> ...


Thanks very much Malnourished for the info - I am flying blind and need to undertake serious research in the next 2 weeks. I will look into the S04 situation. 
:beer:


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## Malnourished (24/5/07)

chillamacgilla73 said:


> I will look into the S04 situation.


I did exactly what you propose (S-04 and racking) several years ago and the results weren't great. The major problem was that it never soured appreciably, but the other 'wildness' never really hit the heights either. 

If you haven't read Wild Brews, Lambic, and the Liddil Lambic Lesson I'd strongly recommend doing so. There's also a fair bit of info on the Babblebelt homebrew board.

And if you can't be bothered doing that just do what Apte suggests. The guy knows what he's doing.


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## voota (29/7/07)

I've transferred my pLambic to other fermenters now... bottled 5 litres blended with 20% 4 week old plambic, another 5 litres went onto 1.5kg of frozen raspberries, another 5 litres was bottled with priming sugar. 
As for the taste (from the glass fermenter), its pretty decent... sourness is moderate/low and the funk is also a bit restrained... perhaps there is some form of ropiness thats a bit strange. 
I also brewed another lambic the other day with, debittered hops (thanks kook), 1.5 yr old powells pils malt, tf torrified and a 3 year old wyeast Lambic blend ($2 at G&G), didnt even step up the yeast... just threw it in and 4 hours later at a temperature of about 13deg, fermentation kicked in hard and fast. Who knows how it will turn out? 
Good fun plambic brewing is...


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## LovesToBrew (30/7/07)

I have a picture of my last kriek, turned out quite nice:


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## chillamacgilla73 (30/7/07)

voota said:


> 3 year old wyeast Lambic blend ($2 at G&G)


Similarly, I threw a 2 year old lambic blend from TWOC without ramping up onto Asher n my turbid mashed pLambic and it kicked off without a problem...Well, it wasn't as fast to get going as Ashers and I got nervous that the blend may have been out of balance and took some funky gunky ooze off Ashers brew and innoculated mine!

Silly question, but how did you find the IBU's on the debittered hops? Our pLambic tastes a little high in the IBU's department..


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## voota (30/7/07)

chillamacgilla73 said:


> Silly question, but how did you find the IBU's on the debittered hops? Our pLambic tastes a little high in the IBU's department..



Not such a silly question, I was thinking the same the other day after trying my new plambic... there is definitely some bitterness in there. The hops direct website where kook got them from states 0% aa, so I was just going off that info. 

'goes downstairs to chew on some debittered hops'

They have a bit of bitterness in them i think, the packet says 0% aa. I also tried the lambic again and the bitterness is not as heavy as I remember, I dont think its going to be a problem for me.


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## kook (30/7/07)

I've dropped hopsdirect an email to ask about the debittered hops AA% and bitterness issues. I'm curious as I want to use them soon.


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