Lambic Progress
A couple weeks ago I tried my hand at one of my more ambitious Homebreing projects to date. A Lambic.
Lambics, are a style that traditionaly are fermented using the natuarlly occuring micro-organisims in a particular region in Belgium. technically it is an infection, something that most Homebrewers have at the top of thier list of what not to do.
Duplicating this classic technique is not very practical here in htis part of the owrld so the major HB yeast vendors have available a blend of bacteria cultures that closely simulate the same effect. I went with the WhiteLabs offering, WLP655.
I made an otherwise typical ale with about 50% wheat and fermented with a standard clean ale yeat. When primary was finished after a bout 10 days, I racked the beer into 2 3gal carboys and split the Bacteria blend between them. One of which had 3.5# of raspberry puree’ added as well.
I am leveraging pretty closely with the process/recipe on DJ’s blog, “Fermentarium”
As I understand it, they will need to sit for 6-12 months, at which point I will likely keg either or both, possibly blending them. At least a portion of it will be further flavored with raspberries and sweetened a bit somehow. I haven’t decided for sure yet on that.
It (they) have been in secondary for about 3 weeks now at about 68F and there are now some white fuzzy patches speckling the surface of each. If it goes OK, I should have something nice for Christmas 2010.