Lambic Experiment

I have had it in my mind that I want to try to brew a close to traditional Lambic using no commercially supplied yeasts.  While these are considered “Wild Yeast” they truly are not since they have been domesticated.  The benefit of having access to these yeasts is you know exactly what you are going to get.  That is always a great thing in brewing, but sometimes it can take the fun out of it.  My plan is to brew up 10 gallons of a Lambic using a traditional recipe 65% malted barley and 35% flaked wheat using a turbid mash.  Now I do not plan to do 10 gallons of an actual spontaneous fermentation, but rather split the batch into two and brew 5 gallons with a project I am currently working on.

“Whats that project?” you might ask.  Well it is harvesting yeast out of Cantillon bottles.  A few buddies of mine and I decided to put in an order for some great Belgian sours through Etre Gourmet.  The experience was great and shipping was prompt.  I figured why not try and get some yeast out of these bottles since I have access to them.  I have successfully harvested yeast on several occasions, but never out of a Lambic or Sour.  Being my first stab and not finding a load of information online about Cantillon yeast harvesting I thought it would be nice to have a pretty good documentation.

First things first I needed to make up a small starter solution with a low original gravity to give the yeast and bacteria something to wake up and feed on.  So I made up about 4 oz. of 7 Brix wort.  I followed standard procedures as any other starter boiled the wort for 10 minutes, etc.  What I did differently with this was added some oak cubes (7 cubes) and started out in a mason jar.  I boiled the mason jar, lid and ring, and oak cubes together for 15 minutes to sterilize everything.  once completed I poured the boiling wort into the mason jar sealed it up and immediately cooled it.  Once cooled came the awesome part opening up a bottle of Rose De Gambrinus and slowly pouring it into my Allagash chalice.

This is great stuff and what a framboise is supposed to taste like.  The awesome part of this was it was bottled on Sept. 3rd.  This is good for harvesting yeast.  Once poured into the glass I left ~1/2 oz behind and gave it a good swirl and poured it into the mason jar.  After a day there was no signs of movement and I had the craving for another Cantillon this time I opened up a Oude Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio and performed the same procedure.  Upon waking up in the morning I work up to find the mason jar with a nice krausen.  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

A porter was the first recipe that I made when I started into brewing.  Like most I started with a extract kit from an online vendor. While this made a good beer it left me with more of a desire to create something better.  I have brewed many versions of porters fine tuning what are the aspects I like about a good robust porter.  When I sit down to formulate a recipe I like to do some research to see clones out there of beers that I like.  With this knowledge I can determine what it is that I like.  This trial and error system of trying tweaks to a recipe is what led me to the base beer for Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter.

This is the second time I have brewed this  beer the first time I poured the beer at Heritage Festival at Forest Park in St. Louis.  This was my first time pouring one of my beers at a Festival and I absolutely loved it.  When I made the first batch it was a 10 gallon batch that I split into two separate batches.  The other beer made was a Coffee Vanilla and Cinnamon Porter.  Some of the things I took away from the first batch was I needed more peanut butter flavor.  I did research on getting this flavor into a beer and most of what I read was all failures or dumping tons of money into a brew, which believe me I don’t have a problem doing if the beer comes out great.  After reading about de-oiling all natural peanut butter for months to add to beer I thought to myself no way I don’t have time to prepare for the festival.  I then looking into PB2, which is a dehydrated peanut butter you can find at some grocery or heath stores.  Everything I read was negative about using this.  The flavors and aromas were subtle even when using multiple containers (6.5 oz) at $5 a pop thought to myself no way again.  I then started to think about vodka infusions, which I am a fan of in getting flavors into beers.  So this was the method I went with.  There where some methods online, but nothing to in detail.

During the first batch i used a cup of unsalted peanuts that I decided to make an vodka infusion out of.  My initial thought was I would strain out the peanuts when I added the vodka to the secondary.  So I filled a mason jar with a cup of peanuts and filled it with vodka.  When I decided it was time to put the vodka in the secondary I decided to dump the whole jar with the peanuts.  I let them sit in the beer for 2 weeks before putting the beer in a keg and carbonating.  Upon sampling my thoughts were good subtle peanut flavor and aroma, but I wasn’t so sure I could pick it out if I didn’t know it was there.  So moving onto the next batch I decided I would double the peanuts.  Note that this is for a 5 gallon batch.

Peanut Vodka Infusion

2 cups of peanuts

Vodka to cover to the top of the peanuts

Similarly I make a infusion of 2 vanilla beans and 5 ounces of cacao nibs to get the chocolate flavor.