Lambic blending experiment

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koplamp

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Hey guys,

It was running through my mind for a while now to blend lambic and last week I finally bought some fermenters. A buddy of mine who is also very passionate about lambic also bought a fermenter so we're working on this together.

Right now we have 2x 30L Speidel fermenters. I'm going to buy one more on monday. The plan is to fill three 30L fermenters with lambic from different lambic brewers. Yesterday we already went to De Troch to pick up 30L of 8 month young lambic. Pics:

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I was kindly surprised by the color, aroma and taste of their lambic, although it misses some depth.

On friday we will be stopping by Lindemans and Girardin for more lambic. After all three 30L fermenters are filled, we plan on blending them on 12L fermenters. I also have access to 2yr old Boon and 2yr old Girardin.

The plan is to put some fruit on soms of the fermenters. Right now we already know for sure we will add grapes and gold kiwi to the first two blends. For the rest we'll have to see what fruit is available since it's off-season and everything's pretty expensive right now. Blueberries are one of the options. We will try to blend a geuze too.

I will post updates/pics in this thread when something happens. We started off knowing **** about blending but we're getting some help from a few very cool people. It's pretty exciting so let's hope for the best.

Cheers!
 
First update:

Today we did our first 2 fruit blends. For our first blend we chose Rosé grapes. After washing and cutting them in 4 we added 300g of grapes per liter. Looks pretty cool!

For the second blend we went for kiwi which is a little risky probably. It was my own choice, when I ate the kiwi's they had the perfect sweet-sour balance. We also mixed 2 different kinds of kiwi, gold and green. 250gr/liter.

Pic of our filled fermenters:

Left: kiwi
Right: grape

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Tomorrow we wil fill them up some more. Grapes still need 150gr and 0,5 liter of lambic
We ran out of kiwi's due to misscalculation so we will need to add some more & fill up the rest with lambic to clear the headspace in the fermenters.

Fruit will be on the lambic for about 6 months, depends on how both will react ofcourse. After that we will blend an amount of extra young lambic to the fruit lambic for fermentation in the bottle.
 
Today we added the rest of the grapes/kiwi's to the fermenters and filled them up with lambic. Grapes are now 300g/L on 9L of lambic
Kiwi's: 250g/L, also on 9L.

Washing/cutting the grapes whilst sipping an OGV 2010:

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Also did a small checkup before we added all the rest. We were a little too curious I guess:

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Surprisingly, both fruits were already very present. In aroma, taste and color. Only monthly checkups from now on!
 
Whilst waiting on the fruit to ferment, we made a small batch lambic blend. The blend was made with a mix of young(8-11 months) lambic and a mix of old(2 yrs old+5 yrs old) lambic. We added a small amount of extra young lambic, about 3 months young, for bottle refermentation. And so B1 is born..

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Whilst waiting on the fruit to ferment, we made a small batch lambic blend. The blend was made with a mix of young(8-11 months) lambic and a mix of old(2 yrs old+5 yrs old) lambic. We added a small amount of extra young lambic, about 3 months young, for bottle refermentation. And so B1 is born..

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Where did you get the 5yr old lambic from?
 
Ahhhh had a good/productive day.

First signs of activity in the bottles:

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Which is pretty good news after a week I guess. From there we moved on to the next two fruit blends, 2 kinds of fruit where I was looking forward to quite a lot: Raspberries and blueberries. We started off with the raspberries:

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300grams per liter. We put together a sweeter, fruitier lambic blend, even added a little bit of kriekenlambiek because the raspberries were a tad sour. Next up were the blueberries:

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We chose a more sour blend because the blueberries were pretty sweet.

Ended up mixing the remaining lambics for another regular blend which we will bottle on monday. Kept pretty good track of what we used so we know exactly what amounts were remaining. I'll post some pics from the bottling on monday.

Guess that will be it for a little while, it's still a bit chilly in Belgium so fermentation will take a little longer than expected.

Cheers!
 
Weather went from -8°C to +15°C in a week in Belgium, which means pretty good news for fermentation. The fermenters are currently in our warehouse attic, so we were pretty dependable on the weather.

Fermentation started on grape and kiwi lambic:

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Pics are a little dark but using flash is even worse.

Quick checkup on the Framboise:

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Blueberry:

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Pretty happy with the color on both!

Cheers
 
It's been a month since our last update.. We opened a bottle of B1G today. I'll leave this to your imagination:

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Still very young, only 2 months in the bottle.. Though a very nice, hazy orange pour. Fluffy white head which lasted longer than expected. Nose was wet hay, maybe some urine. Definitely noticable amount of funk. Taste was fresh, citrus touch, funky, bitter finish.

Can't believe this is our first blend. Notes are so promising. This is a serious base we have here..
 
Time for an update..

Blueberry:
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Very berry forward, small spark of carbonation. Needs more time.

Grape:
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Touch of fruit, deep grape character, also small carbonation. Very tasty, way better than before bottling.

Kiwi:
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Kiwi aroma and taste, touch of mint(??), tart finish. Subtle carb. I could drink this while sitting in the sun for sure.

Framboise:
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The smell mellowed down a little which is a good thing. Tons of raspberries, very funky and tart finish. Looks awesome too, nice head. Nicely carbonated.

Pineapple:
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Probably our favorite. Lots of pineapple, bitter, dry tart finish. So drinkable.

Geuze B1:
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I must say, we tried this one after 2 months and it was barely drinkable. 2 months later it tastes so good. Mineral'ish, funky, subtle tartness. Lots of things going on here. Very nice carbonation.

After trying all lambics, it's pretty amazing that everything is so drinkable.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Just found this post, really cool being able to make your own blends, the pineapple one has to be weird.
I just got a few bottles of De Cam´s Nectarine to try, is that kind of what you´re aiming towards with yours?

Btw, if you´re around during zwanze in brussels I´d love to try some ;)
 
Just found this post, really cool being able to make your own blends, the pineapple one has to be weird.
I just got a few bottles of De Cam´s Nectarine to try, is that kind of what you´re aiming towards with yours?

Btw, if you´re around during zwanze in brussels I´d love to try some ;)

Actually the Pineapple is pretty refreshing and tasty.

Haven't had the chance to try De Cam Nectarine, but I have a few bottles. Initially the plan was to blend a 'Stone' lambic, with nectarines, apricots and peaches. A little in the direction of De Garde's Stone Bu. But then again, peaches.. We can always blend them later on but I'd say now that they're too tasty seperately to blend them.

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Handpicked, homegrown blackberries. We need 2 more picking sessions to have enough fruit to blend..
 
koplamp shared his framboise and pineapple blends with me on his recent trip to the states. Really impressive stuff. He also gave me a bottle of his blueberry blend that I still haven't opened yet.

Looking forward to what the future holds, Tim!

Thanks! Crack those blueberries in the summer sun!
 
koplamp shared his framboise and pineapple blends with me on his recent trip to the states. Really impressive stuff. He also gave me a bottle of his blueberry blend that I still haven't opened yet.

Looking forward to what the future holds, Tim!

Had the framboise up here in VT as well and it was delicious. Saving the bottle of unfruited for later this summer but looking forward to diving in :D
 
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