From postmaster at longs.lance.colostate.edu Mon Jun 13 09:37:12 1994 Received: from longs.lance.colostate.edu by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA00938 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Mon, 13 Jun 94 09:37:07 -0400 Received: from localhost (daemon at localhost) by longs.lance.colostate.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5a (LANCE 1.01)) id AAA23296 for reallambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu; Mon, 13 Jun 1994 00:30:13 -0600 Message-Id: <199406130630.AAA23296 at longs.lance.colostate.edu> Reply-To: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu (postings only - do not send subscription requests here) Errors-To: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu From: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu (subscription requests only - do not post here) To: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu Subject: Lambic Digest #370 (June 13, 1994) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 00:30:13 -0600 Lambic Digest #370 Mon 13 June 1994 Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles) Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: Blizzard Bock (bickham) Gueuze snobbery, again? (Todd Gierman) Send article submissions only to: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu Send all other administrative requests (subscribe/unsubscribe/change) to: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu Back issues are available by mail; send empty message with subject 'HELP' to: netlib at longs.lance.colostate.edu A FAQ is also available by netlib; say 'send faq from lambic' as the subject or body of your message (to netlib at longs.lance.colostate.edu). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 09:52:39 -0400 (EDT) From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu Subject: Re: Blizzard Bock Kieran writes: > > I wasnt aware that Blizzard Bock went through some type of lacto > fermentation. Have u confirmed this? I've always just thought it was an > infected beer--with vegetal type flavors. That's my impression as well - the sourness that's present in their wheat beer is appropriate, it makes a pretty poor addition to an extract bock. Since I'm here, I might as well ask for some advice on lambics. I have a pLambic to which I just added 10 # of cherries after 4 months in the carboy. I know that't rushing things, but I didn't want to move a full carboy of beer in December. I used the dregs from a previous batch which finished with a gravity of 1.007, however this one seemed to taper off at 1.012. It has a pretty nice brett. character and a decent dose of lactic sourness, but I obviously need to add an organism to dry it out. Is pediococcus the one I'm looking for, or should I add brettanomyces as well? Thanks, Scott - -- ======================================================================== Scott Bickham bickham at msc.cornell.edu ========================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 17:18:30 -0500 From: tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman) Subject: Gueuze snobbery, again? No, this has nothing to do with Jim Liddil's disdain for the "blandification" process :-) (I do think that even opinions can be informative). I raised this issue once before: what we get over here is pretty much gueuze, gueuze with cherries, gueuze with raspberries, or what have you. This is essentially a blended product with or without "refermentation" in the bottle. Is it really feasible to approximate successfully such a product with a single batch p-lambic? I seriously doubt it, even if one has cultured the crud from between the barrel staves in a blender's cellar. But this is a plea for enlightenment, not an epiphany on a soapbox: could somebody who has the knowledge please take a moment to comment on some of the "straight" lambics that one finds on tap in Brussels? Could you attempt to compare them to the house's Gueuze product (say Cantillon lambic to Cantillon Gueuze, for example)? Having recently violated my p-lambic by piercing the pellicle and drawing off about 50 ml for sampling and measurements, I am now ruminating on the virtues of blending (yes, again). I am pondering ways of boosting horsiness and other Brett contributions - like Jim, I don't think that the turbid mash is necessarily the answer. Finally, after six months I am getting a noticeable (by taste and pH strips) drop in pH - about pH 4.2. Yes, the souring has begun. However, I have lost much of the horsiness that was there at the end of the primary (I added Brett in the primary) and I am looking to get it back. I think that this may require blending or spiking and then bottling. My gravity is down to 1006, so I am not sure that there is too much left in the way of fermentables to bring back the horsiness. Phil Seitz responded in LD 350 to my pining for sourness: >Now, I'm not the person to be authoritative on lambics, but remember >that Guinard says higher temperatures (+/-75F) of summer are important >to developing your sourness, as pedio is a warmth-loving lactic >producer. In other words, (in theory at least) you won't get the >sourness you want if you keep the beer at cellar temp only. Perhaps >you could take your lambic with you to the beach? I think Phil is being a bit disingenuous, because everybody knows: you can dress them up, but you can't take them out - North Carolina law strictly prohibits opened containers of alcoholic beverages in motor vehicles, and it's too far to bicycle :-) Todd ------------------------------ End of Lambic Digest ************************ ------- From postmaster at longs.lance.colostate.edu Tue Jun 14 04:07:56 1994 Received: from longs.lance.colostate.edu by goodman.itn.med.umich.edu with SMTP id AA23451 (5.65b/IDA-1.4.3 for spencer at hendrix.itn.med.umich.edu); Tue, 14 Jun 94 04:07:51 -0400 Received: from localhost (daemon at localhost) by longs.lance.colostate.edu (8.6.5/8.6.5a (LANCE 1.01)) id AAA09145 for reallambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu; Tue, 14 Jun 1994 00:30:07 -0600 Message-Id: <199406140630.AAA09145 at longs.lance.colostate.edu> Reply-To: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu (postings only - do not send subscription requests here) Errors-To: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu Status: O X-Status: From: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu (subscription requests only - do not post here) To: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu Subject: Lambic Digest #370 (June 14, 1994) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 00:30:07 -0600 Lambic Digest #370 Tue 14 June 1994 Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles) Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: Blizzard Bock (bickham) Gueuze snobbery, again? (Todd Gierman) Re: Blizzard Bock (Timothy J. Dalton) Re: "Lambic Blizzard" (Jim Busch) tasting impressions... aren't you jealous???!!! (Aaron Birenboim) two for the price of one (Michael Sharp) Turbid Mash Report (This is a longee but goodee) (Donovan Bodishbaugh) Send article submissions only to: lambic at longs.lance.colostate.edu Send all other administrative requests (subscribe/unsubscribe/change) to: lambic-request at longs.lance.colostate.edu Back issues are available by mail; send empty message with subject 'HELP' to: netlib at longs.lance.colostate.edu A FAQ is also available by netlib; say 'send faq from lambic' as the subject or body of your message (to netlib at longs.lance.colostate.edu). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 09:52:39 -0400 (EDT) From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu Subject: Re: Blizzard Bock Kieran writes: > > I wasnt aware that Blizzard Bock went through some type of lacto > fermentation. Have u confirmed this? I've always just thought it was an > infected beer--with vegetal type flavors. That's my impression as well - the sourness that's present in their wheat beer is appropriate, it makes a pretty poor addition to an extract bock. Since I'm here, I might as well ask for some advice on lambics. I have a pLambic to which I just added 10 # of cherries after 4 months in the carboy. I know that't rushing things, but I didn't want to move a full carboy of beer in December. I used the dregs from a previous batch which finished with a gravity of 1.007, however this one seemed to taper off at 1.012. It has a pretty nice brett. character and a decent dose of lactic sourness, but I obviously need to add an organism to dry it out. Is pediococcus the one I'm looking for, or should I add brettanomyces as well? Thanks, Scott - -- ======================================================================== Scott Bickham bickham at msc.cornell.edu ========================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 17:18:30 -0500 From: tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu (Todd Gierman) Subject: Gueuze snobbery, again? No, this has nothing to do with Jim Liddil's disdain for the "blandification" process :-) (I do think that even opinions can be informative). I raised this issue once before: what we get over here is pretty much gueuze, gueuze with cherries, gueuze with raspberries, or what have you. This is essentially a blended product with or without "refermentation" in the bottle. Is it really feasible to approximate successfully such a product with a single batch p-lambic? I seriously doubt it, even if one has cultured the crud from between the barrel staves in a blender's cellar. But this is a plea for enlightenment, not an epiphany on a soapbox: could somebody who has the knowledge please take a moment to comment on some of the "straight" lambics that one finds on tap in Brussels? Could you attempt to compare them to the house's Gueuze product (say Cantillon lambic to Cantillon Gueuze, for example)? Having recently violated my p-lambic by piercing the pellicle and drawing off about 50 ml for sampling and measurements, I am now ruminating on the virtues of blending (yes, again). I am pondering ways of boosting horsiness and other Brett contributions - like Jim, I don't think that the turbid mash is necessarily the answer. Finally, after six months I am getting a noticeable (by taste and pH strips) drop in pH - about pH 4.2. Yes, the souring has begun. However, I have lost much of the horsiness that was there at the end of the primary (I added Brett in the primary) and I am looking to get it back. I think that this may require blending or spiking and then bottling. My gravity is down to 1006, so I am not sure that there is too much left in the way of fermentables to bring back the horsiness. Phil Seitz responded in LD 350 to my pining for sourness: >Now, I'm not the person to be authoritative on lambics, but remember >that Guinard says higher temperatures (+/-75F) of summer are important >to developing your sourness, as pedio is a warmth-loving lactic >producer. In other words, (in theory at least) you won't get the >sourness you want if you keep the beer at cellar temp only. Perhaps >you could take your lambic with you to the beach? I think Phil is being a bit disingenuous, because everybody knows: you can dress them up, but you can't take them out - North Carolina law strictly prohibits opened containers of alcoholic beverages in motor vehicles, and it's too far to bicycle :-) Todd ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 06:51:23 -0400 From: dalton at mtl.mit.edu (Timothy J. Dalton) Subject: Re: Blizzard Bock I last had some in March of 93, 2 weeks after the big snow dump in the east. (for the record, it was on tap, in Albany at the Hill Street Cafe). The beer was clean and malty. No lactic flavors. I would bet that the one you had was infected. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 10:33:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Busch Subject: Re: "Lambic Blizzard" > I wasnt aware that Blizzard Bock went through some type of lacto > fermentation. Have u confirmed this? I've always just thought it was an > infected beer--with vegetal type flavors. > I agree! Does'nt this same brewery make the highly sour "cask Conditioned" ale served by Clarks Pub???? I was at Stoudts NE Brewers Fest this weekend, and the Clarks Cask ale was indeed one of the worst examples of cask ale, here or across the pond. On the banner above the hand pump was (roughly) "cask ales are naturally low in carbonation, since all cask ales *DO NOT* undergo a secondary fermentation. Well, now you know the true story! Good brewing, Jim Busch ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 07:30:46 -0700 From: mole at netcom.com (Aaron Birenboim) Subject: tasting impressions... aren't you jealous???!!! A friend recently returned from belgium, with a mess o beers. I thought that my impressions might be of interest to some. Geueze =============================== He has a mess o geueze. Two of them were less than interesting. One (i forgot the name) was highly sweetened, and not very complex. It is now owned by the same brewery as Mort Subite, which was also under-stated. The Mort-subite was the un-filtered, refermented in the bottle version. I remember it as thin, and lacking in character all around. Rumors abound that they may do some un-conventional belnding to tone it down. The favorite, we all agreed, was DeNeuve. This one was very complex, and high on the horseyness, with some tannin & earthy tones. Not overpoweringly sour. The second most favorite was Cantillion. This was not so agressively sour as I had heard to expect, but WAS agressively tannic. Perhaps a large precentage of this one had been in wood a loooooong time? Perhaps they use a larger portion of old lambic??? young lambic??? We also had a couple of p-lambics (mine was one) Kriek ====================== We had two. Cantillion and Handsens. Well.... the cantillion was off. Lots of hairspray, and prehaps some sulpher. Ignoring these off aromas, you did get a lot of cherry, with nutty pit flavors. Extreme in sourness. I could see where this might have been quite nice, without the off-character. The big winner of the night was, without a doubt, Handsens. This was everything wonderful you've heard about lambic, without any harsness. The aroma was, however, uninteresting if not off. The flavor was amazing. Cherry really came through, with significant almond, and perhaps some vanilla (from the pits?). Sourness and horseyness were extremely well balanced with a slight sweetness. This was re-fermented in the bottle, and we wondered how the sweetness remained. Today, I wonder if he might have blended some ale in there. It had she subdued balance of many pertoale's. This may be counter to the tastes of true lambic weenies, but I really prefer that degree of plesant, yet complex balance. This Handsen is a blender, about 65 years old, and has no apprencice to his craft. He jokingly mentioned to my friend "do you have 4 years to learn the craft???" His son works in a bank and is comfortable. This guy does EVERYTHING himself. He buys wort, ferments it, and bottles by hand. Hard work, for sure. And apperently, his was the CHEAPEST kriek!!! Jan (the belgian) said all the lambic he got was around $2 or less, even for 750 ml. This does not seem to make sence relative to the recent price list postings... why? Is it THAT much cheaper at the brewery??? (yes, about $2 even for cantillion) We also had a part-ale, called something like "devil's beer". It was very good, well balanced, and reminded me of boon's. Slight sweetness, although it was re-fermented in the bottle. I really like these beers... true lambic can be a bit over-powering. we also had la chauffe. It was a strongish blonde ale (~8%) that was very spicy. Rumor has it that this guy ferments around 84F with a yeast of trappist origin (rocheford?). Spiced with corriander. I found this to be a bit severe for my taste. So much for experiments with high fermentation temperature. well.... gotta go to work.... aaron ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 08:28:08 PDT From: msharp at Synopsys.COM (Michael Sharp) Subject: two for the price of one Hi, Yes, I know the digests are being sent out in duplicate. I don't know why and I can't do anything about it. (I administer the list from a remote location & don't have a login at colostate.edu.) Steve Dempsey, the person who deals with these details for me, is on vacation until the 17th. I imagine things will get cleared up shortly after. Until then, please enjoy both copies. --Mike ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 16:04:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Donovan Bodishbaugh Subject: Turbid Mash Report (This is a longee but goodee) This is the actual schedule of my interpretation of a turbid mash/brew, as it came to pass yesterday (Sunday). It went quite well, and was not as cumbersome as you might think. I used the step temps that Mike Sharp posted as guidelines (which are the same as those in Guinard), but here's what I actually did. Approx. hot water infusion volumes are shown in parentheses. Approx. total volume of the mash at each step is shown in the column at right. Grain Bill: 10# 2-row (half domestic, half DeWolf-Cosyns pilsner) 6.5# soft white wheat berries Hops: 6.6 oz. year old, oven-baked hops. (*See Comment) Mash: Mash Volume: Strike at 125F (4.5 gal) 9.0 gal 20 min rest at 117F 20 min rest at 126F (1 gal) 10.0 gal 2 gal turbid mash decoction 8.0 gal 20 min rest at 148F (3 gal) 11.0 gal 2 gal turbid mash decoction 9.0 gal 45 min rest at 158F (3 gal) 12.0 gal 3.5 gal turbid mash decoction 8.5 gal Mashout at 172 (4 gal) 12.5 gal Filter Mash Combine runnings and turbid mash in brewpot Boil: 3 hrs. Add all hops 30 min into boil. Cover and allow to cool overnight in boiler. Volume at start of boil = 14-15 gal Final yield = 7.5 gal OG=1.055 Fermentation: This morning, I pitched 50 ml each of the following: Klockera, Pedio, Brett. B., Brett A. I intend to pitch Saison Dupont and Gueuze Boon bottle cultures in a few days to a week. Comments: *This is Guinard's hopping rate of 0.4 oz./# grain. This is far less than the 5-6x normal figure commonly tossed around the LD. I mean, who makes beer with 1 oz. hops per 7.5 gal? I had a brief discussion with Mike Sharp about this a couple of weeks ago. I think we may be leading people astray with this 5-6x normal stuff (or we should really use 2 oz. hops per gallon). The mash itself went very smooth. The volume of liquid you collect is obviously ridiculous, but that's a boiling issue, not a mashing one. I mash in a 56 qt. Igloo cooler, and I adjusted the decoctions and steps to keep under that total. Hot water infusions were via a standpipe in the copper pipe manifold. Turbid mash decoctions were drained from the manifold (liquid only) and heated immediately to 185F. They were NOT returned to the main mash. The first one looked like milk. After that, they became progressively clearer. I could have kept the volumes lower by starting with a stiffer mash, and by more vigilantly keeping my infusion water at boiling. It slipped to 190F or so at one point. In any case, you can always adjust the decoctions to suit your setup. No, I did not sparge, but the last infusion is, in effect, a batch sparge. I recirculated the filtrate until clear, since I knew I had plenty of complex carbos already. The yield is not all that bad. I would have even been happy with a few points less. The boil also went quite well. My cut-off keg boiler only holds about 12 gal without risk of boilover, so I held back 2 gal or so for the first hour. Boiling off all that water was really no problem. My King Kooker with heat shroud was never more than about half throttle (wide open I think would melt the pot). I don't think a 3 hour boil is all that excessive anyway. Propane is cheap, and Guinard discusses reasons why a long boil is desired for lambics. I caught a good baseball game during the boil. Conclusions: This method is totally doable on this scale. This was a very long (maybe 8 hr. start to finish) brewing session, but a very low stress one. No gooey, pot-scortching wheat pre-boil. No sticky, drippy grain decoctions. No stuck wheat sparge/filter (due to all those steps). No cooling. The worst part was grinding the wheat berries (which I did the night before). I'd do it this way again (although my next batch will be a single step Pale Ale). If you are foolish enough to try this, here are my reccomendations: - Start early - Use an adequate sized mash vessel - Keep a BIG pot (I used a 10 gal) on the fire during mashing, topped up with boiling water for infusions. - Have some boiler arrangement that can cope with all that water. My Kooker can easily boil off 3-4 gal per hour. To quote Mike Sharp, "If you don't like it, then don't follow it". But please do comment. I'll post in a couple of years to tell you if this method makes good beer :). Rick Bodishbaugh ------------------------------ End of Lambic Digest ************************ -------