FrankenBrew Recipe

[HomeBrew]

Style: pLambic Braggot Kriek (?)
Name: TBD

Components:
Flaked Wheat (3lbs.)
Carapils (1lb.)
Maltodextrin (8oz.)
Cascade Hops (4oz. of +4 year old added at start of 3 hour boil)
Buckwheat Honey (6lbs.)
DAP (3tsp.)
Yeast Energizer (1/2tsp.)
Nutrient Blend (1.5 tsp. - incremental)
Stavin Medium+ French "conditioned" Oak Cubes (2oz. present throughout primary, secondary and tertiary)

Starting Gravity: 1.052

Little Buddies:
"House" bacteria 8)
Wyeast #3278 (Lambic Blend)
Wyeast #3112 (B. bruxellensis)
Wyeast #3526 (B. lambicus)
Wyeast #4335 (L. delbrueckii)
Wyeast #4733 (P. cerevisae)

Fermentation Scheme:
Primary - 60 to 70 degrees F with blow off tube (2 months).
Secondary - 70 to 78 degrees F with fermentation lock (6 months).
Tertiary - 60 to 70 degrees F with "snorkel" (10 months).
Fruit Addition - Rack onto 10lbs. NorthStar cherries at 18 months. Age on fruit+pits for 4 to 6 months at 70-78 degrees (anaerobic).

After a looong day in the brewery, I finally put together my latest experimental brew. Hopefully, in about 3 1/2 years I will have a nice yummy pLambic. It should end up more like a Cantillon than a Lindemans. I am trying to improve on my traditional lambic-type brews. This is was originally thought up as a shortcut way to test some fermentation ideas without going through a time intensive turbid mash. I will try to update as the brew progresses...This could be a long saga.

Peace.

 

[lostnbronx]

Homebrew,

This is crazy cool! How do you intend to introduce the different beasties to the wort? Stepped, I assume? With each racking, maybe? Details, por favor...perspiring minds want to blow.

-David

 

[HomeBrew]

Warning, this is the the long answer...

The initial fermentation was with the "house" bugs during the wort cooldown (extended). After an idle period of time, I pitched the Wyeast lambic blend. The lambic blend should actually have all the bugs for the whole process; wheat beer yeast, sherry yeast, several species of Brettanomyces, Pediococci and Lactobacilli. Hopefully, the wort profile will supply enough nutrients for all growth cycles. The fermentation temperatures and conditions will also be synced so as to aid in all the fermentation stages. I will keep an eye on the progress and help out, if need be, with the appropriate pure cultures and or nutrient additions. Just eyeballing the fermentation should tell me how it is going. But, I can also check it in the lab if needed.

I scheduled the fermentation to coincide with the seasonal temperature of my basement. This also matches with the traditional methods in Belgium. (Thier schedule of inoculating during the cooler months makes alot of microbiological sense.) The bulk of the initial fermentation will be by the non-Brett. yeast cultures. The lactic acid bugs won't do much damage here since the temperatures will be below their optimal range. During this time, the yeast cultures will produce enough alcohol to kill off the "house" bugs and eat up most of the easy sugars. The non-Brett. yeasts will eventual deplete their carbon source and go dormant. The Brett. species will be outperformed at this time, but hopfully they will have reproduced enought to take refuge in the conditioned oak cubes where they can munch on celllulose until their proper time comes. Their ability to ferment sugars that the other yeast strains can not will come into play later.

When the temps reach into the 70's during the summer, the lactic acid species will take over. No rackings are done since the initial yeast will start to autolyse by now. This provides nutrients for the lactic acid bugs and the Brett. species. The pediococci grow pretty slow, so they should not contribute too much acid. The lactobaccilli grow much faster, but they should be controlled by the hop acids.

After the temps start to drop in the fall, the growth of the lactic acid bacteria should slow down enough for the Brettanomyces to take over. Small amounts of oxygen at this stage will promote the growth of Brett. and further retard the growth of the lactic acid bugs. This is where traditional oak ageing comes into play. In addition to providing homes for the Brettanomyces, the barrels are microporous enough to allow a small amount of oxygen in but not enough to promote the growth of acetobacteria. (I also think that it is essential for scrubbing off nasty volatiles.) I worked out how much O2 diffusion there is per inch of tubing that I use in my brewery. I will run a length of tubing through the fermenter stopper that is opened and filtered on the outside end and closed on the inside end. By working out how much tubing to submerge in the culture and controlling the air inlet around the stopper, I should be able to match the air exchange rate of a wine barrel (8.5 cc of O2/ L/ year). In the end, the Brett. species should consume all the remaining sugars and attenuation should be near 100%.

This will take me into the next summer when I will rack off of the sediment/ oak and onto the cherries. I may also add additional types of fruit in order to better match the characteristics of traditional Brussel area cherries. The cherries should also ferment to completion and then it will be time to bottle/ condition. Additional yeast will be added at bottling if I don't think that enough survived the marathon.

The plan for this recipe comes from personal experience and my real job, but it is also based on information from the book Wildbrews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast by Jeff Sparrow. If anyone is interested in exploring wild beer brewing and the complicated science behind it, this is a must have.

Peace.

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Homebrew,

Quoting yourself to increase your post count is old hat... I think I caught Dan McFeely at it once. LOL.

Wrathwilde

edit - (and like that... he's gone)

 

[HomeBrew]

LOL...It's been a long day.

 

[lostnbronx]

I worked out how much O2 diffusion there is per inch of tubing that I use in my brewery. I will run a length of tubing through the fermenter stopper that is opened and filtered on the outside end and closed on the inside end. By working out how much tubing to submerge in the culture and controlling the air inlet around the stopper, I should be able to match the air exchange rate of a wine barrel (8.5 cc of O2/ L/ year).

H-Brew,

Are you using a perferated hose? How will you get much O2 exchange out of a closed hose system with just a couple of square centimeters of open space on the top it, and with an impediment yet (the filter)? Will you use a forced air/O2 system of some kind?

This is really way too cool for words!!

-David

 

[Oskaar]

Hey Homey,

I've experimented with Brett and liked the results following a healthy MF in my white wines and some of the Zinfandels I've made. It's definately a exercise in monitoring flavor and aroma in the wine world, along with some exposure to O2. I have a red barrel that I've used this for both reds and whites, and I'm thinking of doing it with a mead before too long. It'll be a brawny one though, probably avocado, cotton, wildflower and of course buckwheat honey. In this case I would be more inclined to go with grape tannin. My barrel is at neutral storage at this point so the tannin addition helps out, and I may use some oak staves or dominos in this batch to balance the three.

Intially it's kind of a funkadelic flavor and aroma which mellows to a very unique and enjoyable character with ageing.

Anyhow, I'm really interested in how this turns out. You're a damned madman, and I kinda like that! LOL

Oskaar <----- Dawning his black silk cape and heading into the underground cavern to fire up the pipe organ and laugh hysterically!

 

[HomeBrew]

I think that sparging with O2 would be way to risky. The tubing is not perferated...that would allow fluid into the tubing and mess with the air exchange. Air flow across the open end of the tube (outside the stopper) should flush/ replenish the air in the tube. In a roundabout way, I have confirmed this through observations at my job.

-HomeBrew

 

[HomeBrew]

Howdy Oskaar,

I thought it was interesting to see research that showed even fresh barrels straight from the cooperage harbor at least some Brettanomyces. Since they have the ability to hide out in the wood typical cleaning/ sanitizing procedures do not wipe them out completely. It may not be a stretch to assume that all wines aged in barrels come into contact with this yeast. Usually, their numbers are low enough that wine is not affected. But, poor cleaning/ sanitization could allow numbers to increase. An increase in O2 availability (i.e. reconditioned barrels = thinner wood) may also increase the population. Availabity of sugars that are not fermentable by wine yeast is yet another way to increase numbers.

If you were to make a mead with a honey variety high in unfermentables and age it in a barrel with a sufficient population of Brett., you could probably expect a good amount of influence from the yeast. If you want to bump it up a notch, an addition of maltodextrin up front will help as well. The wine yeasts don't get much out of it leaving more goodies for the Brettanomyces. They may also need an additional amino source during ageing to help them along.

I totally agree with the importance of ageing with this yeast. There are some strange pathways at work here and not all of the end-products are pleasant.

 

[lostnbronx]

I think that sparging with O2 would be way to risky. The tubing is not perferated...that would allow fluid into the tubing and mess with the air exchange. Air flow across the open end of the tube (outside the stopper) should flush/ replenish the air in the tube. In a roundabout way, I have confirmed this through observations at my job.

-HomeBrew

Positive pressure in the hose would prevent back-seepage, of course, but that takes a dedicated O2 pump and a bit of algebra to figure out to the optimum level (soooo not my strength!). Also, I'd guess that perferated hose of the appropriate size isn't easy or cheap to come by.

By the same token, aren't some folks in the wine industry playing with micro-introductions of O2 during the aging process, in order to simulate the air exchange of traditional oak barrels? Are these the sorts of O2 levels you're talking about (though for metabolic, as opposed to purely chemical reasons)? If so, would a homemade version of this technology be of any use? I don't have one to offer, I'm just wondering.

I'm talking out of my buttocks here, of course -- but whatever, this is about as "Mad Sciency" as I think I've ever read!

-David

 

[HomeBrew]

lostnbronx,

Yes, the micropulsing of O2 is used in the wine industry. I think that the absence of volatile scrubbing is one thing that needs to be addressed in glass/ steel fermentations. Ageing with oak cubes and the like provide character, but some factors are still missing. In the case of the pLambic, the air exchange will provide scrubbing (chemical) as well as O2 for the Brett. growth (metabolic). For meads, the scrubbing would be beneficial provided that you do not have too much exchange and oxidize the brew.

My backup plan for the closed ended tube is to use a double hole stopper. This will allow me to insert a loop of tubing below the surface of the mead. I can then add a stream of filtered air through the tube with an aquarium pump. The tubing will allow air exchange but is microporous enough to keep out any bogies. By varying the length of tubing that is submerged, the tubing wall thickness and the the tubing ID I should be able to control the effects. I should mention that scrubbing studies that I have done at work showed air to be more efficient gas than pure O2.

If something like this does work, I really don't think that it is marketable since any brewer could set up the conditions with equipment at hand.

 

[lostnbronx]

If something like this does work, I really don't think that it is marketable since any brewer could set up the conditions with equipment at hand.

HB,

Ah, but a drilled stopper and a bit of hose makes a perfectly functional airlock...yet we all buy commercially-produced ones, don't we? If you could prove that this is a real benefit to the home fermenting enthusiast, you could easily open the door to a whole new product line.

-David

 

[Oskaar]

Yeah, micropulsing in red has been underway for some time now. Stavin has a product called the OXbox or MicroOX or somthing to that effect. They couple it with the stainless steel fermentation vessel inserts so they are oaking and OXing during the the vigorous portion of the ferment. This is finding a following in the world of white wines too and more wineries are starting this practice with white wines as well.

It's a sign of the times that most bottles under 15$ are being "oaked" with alternatives rather than barrels due to the cost and logistics of barrel space, storage, rotation, replacement, etc. My cousin in Mexico is coping with that at present so I'm spending some time with them on their game plan. They are using barrels and making some outstanding old school Meritage. They just won some prestigious awards in the Baja California Wine Festival in Ensenada.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[hiddendragonet]

Carapils doesn't have enough enzymes to convert flaked wheat. I'm wondering what you were striving for here. Perhaps you meant wheat malt? That would at least lend some fermentables.

I'm assuming you conducted a mash based on your "house" comment.

HD

 

[HomeBrew]

hiddendragonet,

You are right about the low enzyme levels in Carapils, but complete conversion was not the intention. The goal was to supply starches and aminos for the Brettanomyces and bacterial fermentations. I used a modified adjunct mash to maximize the enzyme activity....More for protein conversion to aminos than for starch conversion. I am assuming that there was also additional conversion from the growth of the house bugs.

Here is a photo of the must prior to any inoculation:
http://img147.imageshack.us/full.php?image=fbpreinoc8bt.jpg

and here is a photo of from Day 3 of Saccharomyces fermentation:
http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fbprimary22uv.jpg

Peace.

 

[hiddendragonet]

Very cool! I like your thinking. It's gonna be one wild & crazy brew, that's for sure! Let us know how it turns out in a year or two. ;D

 

[Brewbear]

Homey,
You are a rock!!
You can wait that long for a brew before stealing a taste.....dude, you are good!!

Cheers,
Brewbear

 

[Oldonehundredth]

Hey, HomeBrew,

Your pLambic must be reaching some kind of critical milestones by now. Isn't it about time for an update on the progress? Has your decision to experiment with Brett., lactobacillus, and pediococcus proven to be worth it, or has your entire brew operation just about gone feral by now?

 

[GrantLee63]

HomeBrew has not been active on this board since October of 2006 ..... hopefully he'll chime in as I'm sure quite a few HB'ers are interested in this one.

- GL63

 

[HomeBrew]

HomeBrew still lives! The past few years have been really hectic...Having a kid (and a second one on the way) and buying/ taking care of a 50 acre property seriously cuts into my posting time. I do still post on a beer site and recently brought up the FrakenBrew experiment...Which reminded me that I at least owe an update on this thread.

Anywho, I stuck with the batch for nearly two years but finally gave up on it. It went through all the typical growth "phases" you find with a traditional pLambic, but the flavor profile was just not good. My final conclusion was that the bacterial/ Brettnamyces fermentation of honey produces some very odd by-products as compared to what you get from a barley/ wheat malt. I was hoping that they would fade but it didn't happen. I also hoped that blending with another batch or a fruit addition would help, but in the end I decided that it wasn't worth the effort. If I try something similar in the future, I plan to go with a higher grain-to-honey ratio and/ or other type of honey. I will be sure to report back if anything turns out well. I certainly wouldn't discourage someone from giving this idea a go...Experimentation is what homebrewing is all about.

Peace all.