La Première Année Lambic

Yesterday I brewed my first lambic. My hope is to brew a batch each Fall for the next two years, then blend them to produce a gueuze in 2014. There is plenty of opportunity for mistakes and failure with each batch between now and then, so for the time being I'll just remain hopeful.

I took the recipe and brewday procedures right out of the book Wild Brews. This being my first attempt at brewing a lambic, I opted to forgo the traditional turbid mash in favor of the more simplistic but equally time consuming Wyeast Lambic Mash (I see now that the one outlined on their website varies considerably from the one in Wild Brews).

La Première Année Lambic

OG 1.047

Mash Efficiency 60%

Pre-boil Volume 11 gallons

Boil Time: 180 minutes

Malt/Fermentables/Etc

55%  Belgian Pilsner - 6 lb 9 oz

37%  Raw Wheat -     4 lb 6 oz

8%    Extra Light DME - 1 lb (late addition @30mins)

          8oz rice hulls

Mash water: 6.75 gallons (2.35 qt/lb)

Main mash: 158°F for 90 mins (after cereal mashing wheat, see below)

Hops

93 grams (~3.3 ounces) of debittered 0%AA leaf hops all added at the beginning of the boil. 

I purchased these from Hops Direct last month.

Yeast/Bacteria

Wyeast 3278 Lambic Blend

Cantillon Gueuze dregs pitched 24 hours after lambic blend. I was waiting for friends to share the Cantillon with.

Brewday

1) Cereal Mash. Cereal mashed all wheat with 11oz (10%) of the pilsner malt. Doughed in with 75% of the water (~5 gallons) to hit 140°F. Immediately after dough in, began heating and stirring until boiling. Boiled for 30 mins.

2) Main Mash. Combined cereal mash with remainder of water (1.7 gallons), all pilsner malt, and rice hulls. Held at 158°F for 90 mins. Despite Wyeast's instructions to stir the mash continuously at this point, I just let it rest for an hour, then heated and stirred it after an hour.

At 60% the mash efficiency was much less than normal ~75%. I have no idea why that is.

3) Drained first runnings to the kettle then batch sparged with 6.2 gallons of 190°F water. Finally drained the second runnings to the kettle.

Pre-boil gravity fell 3 points low (1.027) and pre-boil volume was almost one gallon short. To compensate I added .75 gallons of distilled water and 1lb of extra light DME 30 mins before the end of the boil. I attribute the volume shortfall to evaporation during the cereal mash and I suspect that the raw gelantinized wheat absorbs more water than barley malt does, but that's just a guess. 

4) Brought to a boil, added all hops, and boiled for 3 hours.

5) Chilled to 65°F and aerated with 15 seconds of pure 02. I read conflicting opinions about lambic wort aeration (some say yes, some say no) so I decided to compromise and use half the amount of pure O2 I would with a regular ale. My feeling is that there is some aeration occurring in the coolship and associated transfers but likely less than the amount modern commercial ale breweries target.

I ended up with 11 gallons of 1.047 wort, which was just two points short of my target gravity of 1.049.  

I pitched one fully swelled smack pack of 3278 I had smacked the night before. I saw visible fermentation within 16 hours. It is fermenting now in a closet inside where it will stay for a year at 68°F-70°F. I'm looking forward to La Deuxième Année and La Troisième Année.