Author: Brendan Gramer17D-Sour Ale-Straight (Unblended) LambicMinimum OG: 1.040 SGMaximum OG: 1.054 SGMinimum FG: 1.001 SGMaximum FG: 1.010 SGMinimum IBU: 0 IBUMaximum IBU: 10 IBUMinimum Color: 3.0 SRMMaximum Color: 7.0 SRM
Brewed in May 2011. Kegged and served in June 2012. The malto-dextrin is to be sure there are a few complex sugars left for the extra organisms to eat after the brewers yeast gets finished with its work. I use the dried extract since lambic is a very light colored beer and most liquid extracts seem to be too dark for the style. The wheat extract is a poor man’s approximation of the unmalted wheat used in the commercial lambic breweries. I don’t know of an extract equivalent of unmalted wheat. The water is brought to a boil and the extract and malto-dextrin are added. After re-establishing the boil, the hops are added and the boil is held for 90 to 120 minutes. I don’t bother with Irish moss in a lambic, but you can use it if you feel the need. 3 lbs of thawed sour pie cherries were added one month after racked to secondary. A second bag of 3 lbs sour pie cherries were added in January 2012 primarily for aroma and strengthening of flavor. When the first 3lb bag of thawed pie cherries were added to secondary, I included the juice. When the second 3lb bag of cherries were added, the juice was drained first and NOT added. The beer had already soured and you do not want to undo progress by introducing more juice which will sweeten it. When partial-mashing your acidulated malt in the boil-kettle for 30 minutes, do not raise the temp over 180 degrees or you will leech tannins (the same concept that applies to adding water to coffee) After 30 min is up, pull out the mueslin bag of acidulated malt then raise temps to start boiling. Hold off on adding extract until 15 min to flameout to preserve the light color of the beer. Dry Malt Extract (DME) tend to darken more the longer its boiled (like how cooking sugar becomes caramel, light, medium, dark, then blackened caramel.) Your mileage may vary because of weather conditions, where you put the fermenter, and how you control it. Definitely build up a healthy yeast starter. I used 100% Roeselare in Primary and gave my yeast starter 5-7 days to build up before pitching into the wort. Sour bugs take more time to build up in the starter. |
Recipes >