Based on this
Belgian-style cherry beer recipe.
Clockwise from top-left: Coopers light malt extract kit; Wyeast 3278; Funkin morello cherry puree; malto dextrin; wheat malt extract; 700g organic cherries.
Here's the propagator started for about 40 hours, in 500g wheat malt extract and 2L dechlorinated water, extra to that in the recipe. Smells bad.
Cherry puree and halved & mashed cherries, in a rather delicious goop.
Here is the wort with yeast pitched, ready to be sealed. I'd like to say that it has the fragrance of sweet rich cherry and golden light wheat malt. It has not.
OG needs a bit of calculation here, as the SG of the yeast starter will be different to that of the rest of the wort. I made up 2L of wheat malt extract and boiling water, just the same as the yeast starter's base, and measured from that. The total OG will be based on the 22.2L of wort at 1028 (25C), and 2L of starter at OG 1057 (63C). Correcting to standard temperature for these, we have 22.2L at 1030, and 2L at 1076; taking a weighted average, and ignoring the sugar in cherries and cherry puree, the SG is a modest
1034. It'll sit in the fv for a little longer than the recipe suggests, to let the brett develop there. If I can get just one lambic to turn out nice to drink, that'll be my excuse to find some small wooden barrels from Brussels for making more!
Also to note - the recipe calls for Hallertau hops, though lambics generally use only a little hops, and go for old dry ones at that, as a preservative rather than bittering agent. If this is to be made from extracts and hops, it may be worth leaving some Hallertau out for a while to mellow before using them in the brew.
Labels: Brew 16
