Golden Promise / Rye Lambic?

[Arrheinous]

For those making lambic, how often do you deviate from the traditional Pilsner/Raw Wheat? Brewer's Friend has a neat table of what other people on that platform have done recipe-wise.

I'm thinking of 60% Golden Promise and 40% Raw Rye. GP maintains a certain sweetness in a clean beer that can be used for bugs while the rye adds some complexity without adding spice.

 

[Bensiff]

The lambic style is a light barley and wheat, traditionally Pilsner and unmalted wheat as you noted. So, maybe it isn't a traditional lambic but you can do whatever you want when making a sour.

 

[burninator]

First one I brewed, about a month ago, was 40% rye, 15% dark wheat, and the remainder was 2-row.

 

[Bensiff]

I just bottled a sour that was 11 lb 2 row, 1 lb flaked barley, and 1 lb crystal 40. Tastes fantastic. Tradition is great but the lambic tradition started before modern malt. Explore away.

 

[badlee]

Like Bensiff said,explore away.
Do not fall into the trap of thinking you are going to brew a "Lambic" and therefore MUST use that traditional grain bill.
Go into it looking at a different angle: I am going to brew a tasty as hell sour beer and will allow my own taste and better judgement to drive the recipe.
I just brewed up a Stingo to be soured and am super excited about it

 

[Arrheinous]

I do like the idea of lambics and dealing with vintages to make gueueze but they can come out rather simple.

What I ended up going with was 60% Golden Promise and 40% mixed "7 grain cereal mix" (millet, barley, corn, rye, etc.) because even the fancy Whole Foods-type places around here didn't have raw rye berries. The cereal was toasted, half with a soaking and half dry, and a bit of chocolate wheat was added to make it darker.

 

[badlee]

Now that sound interesting!
How did you go about hopping?
What kind of culture did you pitch?

 

[Arrheinous]

This one was pitched on a 10 month old Oud Bruin yeast cake (Roeselare was the original pitching blend) which had dregs of Sam Adams New World Trippel, Liefmans Goudenband, and a few other commercial sours. Probably Monks Cafe and some others too. I did an oud bruin-style sour brown and a crabapple Flander's red in August 2014.

With the new beer I also pitched a 1L La Roja starter and dregs from Oro de Calabaza and Tart of Darkness.

A pic of the '7 grain cereal mix' is here. I based the potential on flaked rye and took 0.02 points off for toasting (1.034) which is what you get going from 2-row to Victory.


10# Simpsons Golden Promise
3# 7 Grain Cereal Mix, pre-milled and toasted at 300F for 25min
3# cereal mix soaked with water and toasted at 300F for 25F
1# Briess Midnight Wheat

0.8 oz of 8% First Gold hops (First wort hopped, 100 min boil) - 26 IBU, 0.4 BU/GU ratio. Definitely oud bruin hopping and not lambic hopping; I do have the aged hops for a lambic and usually do 3oz/5G (I have 4G of lambic from October 2014 and 10G from this May).

Brought the 6# of 'cereal' in 2G of water to 200F and let sit for 10min; added half the GP malt and 2G and brought to 125F for 30min; added 2G water and raised to 160F for 30 min. Sparged to 7.5G at 180F, all done via direct fired mash tun.

100 minute boil (humid day gave low boil-off)
1.066 OG, 5.5G batch, 60% efficiency

I might have to start playing with water chemistry. My brewing water is a little alkaline but cereal mash and high temp mashes haven't done super well for me. Who knows what the potential of the cereal mix is though.

 

[badlee]

Great detail in your reply. Thanks.
Maybe have a look at the brewing water chemistry primer by ajdelang.
Since I started using it,I have seen REALA difference in my brews