LAMBIC IV


17 1/2#    Weyermann Pils
6#            Wheat
2 oz.        '01 Crystal hop flowers @90 min.
GueuzeFest  II & III bug starters

10 gallons H20 with 2# pils & 6# wheat @ 148 down to 143: 30 min.  Bring slowly up to 212 & boil for 30 min.  Add 3+ gallons of cold H20 + 14# pils @ 144 up to 158: 1 hour+.  Sparge with 200F.  Collect 14, boil down to 12.

OG:  1.054

Biers in GF II:
    -3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze: Nov '05
    -Petrus Aged Pale
    -Oude Beersal Gueze
    -?

Biers in GF III:
    -Cantillon Bruocsella 1900 Grand Cru: Sept '05
    -Gueuze Fond Tradition/St. Louis
    -Oude Beersal
    -Gueuze Girardin 1882
    -3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze: Nov '05

This time I made Lambic, I wanted to make sure to have plenty of starch in it for the Brettanomyces & bacteria to chew on for the long term.  I don't think that I'd provided enough in the past ones.  Mash schedules were more conventional multi step ones.  So, I performed a version of the Wyeast Lambic Mash Schedule™.  A lazier version, perhaps.  I also wanted to add aged whole hops because in the past I'd just used debittered chinook at about 1% alpha.  It might be best to use no hops at all.  This would allow the bacteria free reign to acidify without the possiblity of being impaired by certain hop compounds.  I couldn't resist, though.  So I compromised and used 2 ounces instead of like 9 or 10 which would be a more stylisticly appropriate amount.

GueuzeFest II starter tasted awesome.  Plenty of acid and complexity, and it has been the first bugs outa the gate to show visual fermentation.  Not a pellicle, but a blotchy head of foam.  GF III has just started to show some action, too.  Foam may have been any Saccharomyces that were in these, but who knows.  I yielded about 12 gallons so I was able to use some to feed to the Yard City Terrior bugs.  That carboy is pellicling up nicely now.