so a belguim friend did ask me if i could brew a kriek lambic beer. its a nice beer when i am in europe always try to drink a few so now my question i am looking for the recipy .but can not find it need some help creating this beer recipy.
Check out “Dawson’s Kriek” on our host’s list. I did this one in extract a couple of years ago and it was fantastic. I’ve got one bottle left that I’m saving for the right occasion. Hope to brew the all grain version soon. Just remember, sours take a lot longer to brew than a regular beer, and they only get better with age… This one was 6 months before it was drinkable–but it was well worth the wait.
Cheers,
Ron
thanks did find a sort of kriek beer on nb extract kits .not true the same but will order fermenting and aging time 12 months
If you’re used to drinking kriek lambic in Europe, I think you’d be pretty disappointed with the NB kit. First, it uses canned sweet cherries, which isn’t going to get you anywhere near a true kriek. Second, Wyeast’s lambic blend is mediocre at best.
There really isn’t a recipe for this kind of beer, as opposed to a general technique. The bad news is that they do take a really long time to develop, probably a year before adding the fruit, but the good news is they are actually pretty simple. Your warm climate may actually speed up the development, as well.
Here’s what you can do to make a really nice lambic-style kriek beer–
Malt - Traditional lambic had a grist of pilsner and raw wheat, with the raw wheat making up 20-40% of the grist. OG of 1.050-1.055. If you’re going all-grain, flaked wheat works great for the raw wheat. Traditionally a turbid mash was done, but you can get pretty close by mashing high, like 158F. Sparge really hot (180F) to extract some tannins. If you’re using extract, you can just use wheat DME to about the same OG. Something you can do to simulate the turbid mash is steep some flaked wheat, 8 oz or so, in the wort while it comes up to a boil, which will pull out some unconverted starches. Flaked oats also work well. I’ve just added it to a hop sack before and left it in the boil the whole time, the wort came out nice and starchy.
Hops - Young lambic is really pretty bitter. Aged hops would be used for their low alpha acids to inhibit lactobacillus, like 3-4 oz per 5 gallons. This is because they used a coolship for cooling and inoculating the wort overnight, which would allow too much lactic-acid bacteria to grow before the other microbes could take hold. For a kriek, I’d probably just leave them out entirely as you don’t really need to worry about bacteria from spontaneous inoculation. If you have aged hops, great, they can add some flavor compounds that you won’t get otherwise. If you want to use hops but don’t have aged ones, just use a low alpha hop like Saaz and keep IBUs to 10 or so.
Boil - With aged hops, you really want to boil the wort a long time to drive off some of the unpleasant volatile compounds in them. It also caramelizes some of the wort, which helps promote a longer fermentation as the sacch yeast might not be able to ferment it, and provides food for the pedio in the long run. If you don’t have aged hops and use DME, probably not necessary.
Cultures - This part is key. The lambic blend from Wyeast won’t do much the first time you use it. I would send some more money over to The Yeast Bay for their mélange blend - it’s fantastic. It has all the microbes you need to make a nice lambic-style beer, including the brett and pedio. Also, if you can get your hands on some unsweetened Belgian lambic or gueuze, the dregs from a Cantillon or 3F would be a great addition here, as the microbes will be active in the bottle and will add some additional character to the beer. Don’t worry about racking off the yeast cake, just leave it in primary for the entire duration. Autolysis of the sacch isn’t an issue, as the brett will metabolize these compounds into other flavors. Lambic is left in the original barrels for up to 3 years without racking.
With all sour beers, you don’t want to add fruit until it is ready to bottle on its own, probably at least 9 months to a year. I’m not sure exactly what will happen if you store it for a year at 80+ degrees, and the biggest concern I’d have would be acetobacter if there’s any oxygen available. Keep it under an airlock with minimal headspace, and you’ll be fine. The brett and pedio may go a little crazy at those temperatures, so you might want to taste it every few months. Once you’re happy with its flavor, that’s when you want to add the fruit.
Tart cherries are what makes it a good kriek. If you can get tart cherries with pits, even better. Cantillon leaves the pits in, and their kriek is awesome. If you can’t get fresh or frozen tart cherries, then you can also use dried, although lots of dried cherries have oil on them to keep them from clumping. I like to use 1.5-2# fresh or frozen cherries per gallon. You want to wait for your gravity to stabilize after adding the fruit, and then bottle. Usually about 6 weeks contact time is about right.
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thanks for the nice info today my brew partner comes over to .will bring this up.
No problem! I can post my latest recipe, too, if it would help. But it’s such a wide-open style of brewing, and most parts don’t make that much of a difference in the long run as long as you get the right microbes in your wort.
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BYO has a Lindeman’s Lambic clone for extract and all-grain. I bottled mine about a month ago. I used a Belgian ale yeast to ferment. Put it in a secondary and added a separate slurry of souring bugs from a local NJ company along with10 lbs of frozen cherries. It is only about 7 months old but I like it. I was actually going to begin the process for a peach one this weekend.
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So as a kriek goes, wasn’t that the original fermented natural cherries from around the Baltic area? Seems one of our little brew pubs did a Kriek many years ago and it messed up one of their fermenters… I thought is was a sharp cherry flavor, very bubbly, maybe compared to Duvel with the carb. I did enjoy it, but, they haven’t made it since… Sneezles61
Kriek is a Belgian beer. It just means a beer made with sour cherries. So you could have a kriek lambic, a kriek oud bruin, etc. A lambic style kriek typically would be highly carbed, tart, NOT sweetened, and have about the same tartness as the fruit itself.
(Soapbox)Sweetened kriek like Lindeman’s and Mort Subite are an abomination. (Off soapbox)
damn oud bruin beer nasty haha .should start next month brewing the krieg did place order and some extra carboy for second fermenting .so i can put the krieg away and let it do its nice work .
