Barrel Project #2

[Dodge]

imark and myself were chatting about what to put in the barrel when the stout comes out. As it was last discussed a Lambic was proposed which I'd like to do.

But as we discussed it there are a few issues that we came across and we decided to put it out there.

1) After the barrel is emptied and even after a thorough clean inside I think there will still be a presence of whiskey flavour that may linger. This wont work well with a Lambic style I think, since a Lambic is pale in colour with little hop flavour. The oak will work which is fine

2) We need to have enough people to fill this since we need to have the barrel full with little air space. Too much air space or oxygen will give the beer a vinegar flavour.

3) I reckon that not a lot of people have separate fermenting gear and its not really good practice to mix equipment when working around sour beer styles.

4) spontaneous fermentation for a Lambic would be great but if the barrel is emptied on the 30th we need to be ready to look at filling it asap. We wont have the time to do this properly

With these issues and others we decided to work around them and put it out with our thoughts

How about this time around doing an Oud Bruin. The darker malts would blend and accept any whiskey presence if there are any a lot better than the Lambic.
The beer can be fermented with an neutral yeast. This would allow more people to join in since its the same as brewing any other recipe.
The Bacteria strains will be added once the beer is transferred into the barrel.
The style uses low alpha acid hops so we wont need to get stale hops just yet

This would also allow us some time to plan a Lambic, try out spontaneous fermentation in the mean time, start acquiring the stale hops and insure that the barrel has no whiskey flavour left. With an Oud bruin we could sample monthly and when everyone is happy with the level of sourness then the barrel could be emptied

Start thinking and lets get it going

[Will_D]

As an outsider may I say that Dodge is making perfect sense

[delzep]

Good idea..... Pity Oud  Bruin is 

[imark]

As Dodge already said, there are very good reasons to hold off on the lambic for now. We discussed how we could experiment with spontaneous fermentation and it's a parallel stream that probably deserves a thread of it's own and could be an interesting LB project if anybody is interested in it. It could be next inhabitant of the barrel. But I personally don't think it's work risking bo****ing up the barrel with 200L of rancid whiskey vinegar because we rushed into a half baked lambic plan.

If you are interested in contributing to a Flemish Brown Ale barrel project we get names down and we'll start formulating a plan and organising our supplies. For what it's worth I'd like to push the boundaries of the definition of the style to the tarter end of the acceptable style guidelines. What do you guys think?

Let's try and get this thing moving over the next few days.

[Eoin]

Booooooo :-( I was looking forward to a lambic. I'll have to sample some oud bruin to see if I'm interested. I'll come back when I know if I'll participate. How much are barrels? If the lambic route is to be taken,  three barrels would work best to do a geueze.

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[imark]

I think that barrel cost us €50. Problem may be availability, transport and storage. Il Tubo might confirm.
They're ~200L so it's a lot of beer to gamble. Are you on for a proper lambic with spontaneous fermentation?

[imark]

I'd intend to make kriek with half my portion to keep the missus happy. Think Leifmans Kriek!

[Eoin]

I think to do spontaneous would take some experimentation tbh. I'd prefer to use a commercial blend to innoculate the barrel. But I'm open to spontaneous. I ferment 55l ish a time, 200l is not an awful lot really. Liefmanns is a bit sweet, I was really really impressed by the framboise that was at the Bernard Shaw.

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[Dodge]

Oud bruin can be in the barrel for 6 months to over a year. It all depends when the level of funkyness is at a personal liking. I reckon maybe closer to the year.

A lambic done with commercial bacteria is a safer route to take than spontaneous fermentation.

Also if we do a lambic, can we aquire the required amount of aged hops in the short time we have? If so that's a bonus.

I brew 20litres a time so I'm happy with that amount of beer. To look at any more especially working 3 barrels, although sounds fun IMO would cost a lot of money, time to brew and a huge risk especially since these styles that are true to the originals take some time to be ready and I'd hate to have a barrel of something that doesn't work out.

If we do have access to aged hops, and the barrel is thoroughly cleaned to remove any trace of whiskey, and we use bacteria from commercial source either bought or done from dregs then I don't see any problem.

These are all just pointers to think about

[imark]

How long do we think the barrel can be empty? When do we need to agree a style/recipe/contributors by?
Everything else is easy.

[Eoin]

The barrel can be filled with water to keep it tight whilst waiting.

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[Eoin]

Thinking on it, I know oud bruin as a base in some sweetened stuff, Liefmanns as was already mentioned. If we were to group buy enough tins of krieken then I might be interested again....

TT

[imark]

1. Name an Oud Bruin that I can get in O'Brien's or Superquinn maybe?

Liefmans Goudenband or Kriek are probably the only two you'll get here. Drinkstore and good off licences wil have them.

2. Is the only reason we're not going lambic is because lads may not like it on their equipment?

probably a factor if we want to maximise contributors. Not a show stopper though IMO.

3. If we could get a 200L plastic fermenter would that suffice?

Not worth the hassle I think. How would we manage fermentation temperature?

4. How long would it need to be in the fermenter before the barrel?

I see where your going with this. The brown would probably need min 6 months and the lambic would need to be in the barrel before that. It might make sense to reduce the time the brown is in the barrel to manage oxidation (which shouldn't bee too high on browns to style) but we'd need a suitable container to hold it unless we distributed it earlier and we age it ourselves.

5. Is the only difference (infection wise) that the infection is added with the yeast at the start of a lambic, whereas an Oud Bruin has the infection added in secondary, i.e. it would be added in the barrel and not in the fermenters?

Correct. That would be the approach. If we want to do spontaneous ferment it's gotta be bugs from the start.

[imark]

Lindemanns is made from a lambic base. You need to try Liefmans for an Oud Bruin base. It comes in a paper wrapped bottle.
This is the basic brown http://www.drinkstore.ie/LIEFMANS-GOUDENBAND-375ML-5411686301308/ but they usually have the kriek in stock too.

[Eoin]

I bought a bottle of Lindemann's Kriek in SQ the other day. It's very very sweet, is typical for a kriek?

They tend to be oversweet in my opinion. The decent krieks are cantillon and unsweetened. The framboise at the Bernard Shaw was an excellent example of a lambic.

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