last friday I finally took some time to develop a lambic mash schedule.

• lambics/lambic-based beers rate as some of my all-time favorites.  ever since AP and I visited jean van roy over at cantillon, I have been fascinated by these traditional beers and their methods of production.
• creating these beers at home seemed daunting however, and I put the idea on the back burner until I was better equipped to handle such a task.  with the advent of my new brew setup and the completion of some successful brew sessions, I feel that I am ready to tackle my first (p)lambic.
• after reviewing wild brews and some great lambic resources, and checking the mad fermentationist’s site to double-check some figures, I came up with this schedule based on a scaled-down version of mike sharp’s description of cantillon’s turbid mash:
  • LAMBIC TURBID MASH SCHEDULE (12-13 gal)
  • 15lb belgian pils (60%)
  • 10lb unmalted white wheat (40%)
  • 1. 12lb/gal = (25lb total grist)/(2.1 gal. @143F) = 113F mash
  • 2. hold 113F mash for 10 min
  • 3. add boiling water to get to 136.4F
  • 4. remove 0.57 gal. to kettle 2, heat to 176F at most
  • 5. add boiling water to get to 149F, hold for 15 min
  • 6. remove 2.27 gal. to kettle 2, keep at 176F at most
  • 7. add boiling water to get to 161.6F, hold for 20 min
  • 8. first runnings (2.83 gal) to boil kettle
  • 9. kettle 2 back into mash tun @ 176F = mash @~167F
  • 10. hold mash @167F for 20 min
  • 11. vorlauf and sparge with 185F water
  • 12. ~end up with 18.5 gal wort~
  • 13. divide wort into keggle (13.5 gal) and turkey fryer (5 gal)
  • 14. add 5.17 oz old/low AA hops to keggle @ start of boil
  • 15. boil down to ~12-13 gals*
  • 16. blend keggle and fryer and cool overnight
  • *take reading @ ~15 gals, see if near desired 1.05 OG (shouldn’t be), then boil down to 12-13 (should be around 1.05).  originally had 12,8lbs of grain, but would have to boil off 8 gallons to get near desired OG (not factoring in lower efficiency here either).
• I plan on aging the beer for a year, then kegging 5 gallons and bottling the rest.  if all goes well, after doing this for 3 years I will have a 3 year flight of bottles and enough 1, 2, and 3 year lambic in kegs to blend up a tasty geuze.

I also managed to tie up some loose ends around the home brewery.

• I kegged the amber on saturday, enjoyed a glass of my rapidly diminishing house IPA (well balanced, pleasantly bitter, near sessionable), picked up a couple sankey kegs for use as fermenters, met with jason over at san pedro brew co. to discuss some upcoming projects, and rolled over to stein fillers to get more grain and some bugs for the lambic.  phew!

about a year ago I decided to brew one of my favorite styles – a belgian quadrupel.

• I love the general complexity, intense flavor, and alcohol bite of a well-made quad.  some of my favorite (accessible) quads are pannepot old fisherman’s ale, st. bernardus abt 12, and rochefort 10.
• I especially enjoy the “cola” flavors of the 10, so I initially was planning on brewing a clone of that brew, but BYO came out with an extract clone recipe for the abt 12 that looked too good to pass up.  I can’t find that issue for the life of me, but I managed to find the all-grain counterpart online:
  • St. Bernardus 12
  • OG=1.103
  • FG.=1.017
    IBU=15
    SRM=37
    ABV.=11%

    10#’s Pilsener malt
    3.0 #’s Munich malt
    1.0 #’s aromatic malt
    0.5 #’s Carafa Special III malt
    3.0 #’s Belgian candi syrup (Dark 2) (15 min)
    3.5 AAU Wye Challenger hops
    (60 min) (0.50 oz. 7% alpha acids)
    1.3 AAU Styrian Goldings (20 min)
    (0.25 oz. of 5% alpha acid)
    Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity) yeast

    Step by Step:
    Mash with a 15 minute rest at 135 deg.F, a 35 minute rest at 145 deg F, and a 25 minute rest at 165 deg F, a 5 minutes at 172 deg F. Boil wort for 60 minutes, adding hops and sugars at times indicated in the ingredient list. Cool wort and aerate. Pitch yeast at 70 deg. F. Let fermentation temperature rise to around 83 deg F. Rack beer to secondary and condition for six to eight weeks at 50 deg. F. Carbonate to 3.0 – 3.5 volumes of CO2.

• I remember that I may have substituted 1762 for the 3787, but it was a while back.  both yeasts seem great for this brew.
• A few weeks back I tapped the keg (after close to a year in secondary), and was definitely satisfied with the results.  The beer has a fruity, mildly alcoholic nose, and is smooth and drinkable with good mouthfeel.  The taste has hints of cola and molasses, has fine carbonation, and leaves a sticky sweet finish in the glass.  There is plenty of this beer left, and you can only drink so much at a time, but I am already dreading the eventual kicking of this keg!