I think I ruined my Kriek.

[Starganderfish]

Hi folks,
Hoping for some advice, please be brutally honest! I've just got back into brewing after a 6 year absence (was just doing can's in my previous efforts) and have started trying Extract brewing. I decided to make a Kriek style beer, roughly based on the Northern Brewer Dawson's Kriek recipe. I used:
1.5kg Wheat LME
1.5kg Pilsen LME
1kg light DME
200g Maltodextrine
500g CaraWheat for Steeping
12g Hersbrucker Hops (teabag style)
Wyeast Lambic Blend 3278

I will then add 3kg of Morello Cherries (bought in 600 ml Jars) and 1 to 2 litres of Sour Cherry Juice to the secondary and leave to age for 6-12 months.
Being my first real extract job and my first attempt at a full boil, I think I may have gone a little bit off the reservation so to speak.

I boiled approx 10 litres water, removed from boil and stirred in the LME and DME, then put the Carawheat in a Grain bag and added to the wort to steep.

Having completely misunderstood the general idea of "steeping", I then proceeded to brnig the wort back to the boil and boiled for 60 minutes. I added the hops in the last 20 minutes as I didn't have proper "aged" hops. Cooled, brought up to 20 litres and pitched my lambic yeast starter.
My question is how badly have I messed up by boiling the grains for an entire hour? There was an extremely strong "burnt toast" aroma by the end and I imagine the tannins would be pretty bad.
I pitched the yeast and it's started bubbling okay. I'm not too fussed at what I've done so far but Sour Cherries are kind of hard to come by around here and weren't cheap so I don't want to waste them if the beer itself is going to be an undrinkable mess. Plus 12 months of waiting for what may be a disaster may be more than I can handle.
I'll give it a taste when I rack to secondary but not sure what to expect.

I have or can obtain the ingredients to do this over and will probably do so reasonably soon, hopefully properly this time.
My Main questions:
Is it worth letting this brew continue as a generic Lambic, and save my Cherries for a proper Kriek?
Would this be okay to push though to completion as a Kriek, as Lambics (and Krieks in particular) require a certain amount of sourness?
Or should I just tip it out and try again?
I don't mind tying up a secondary for 6 months as an experiment, but if the experts think it will be a disaster there's no point.
As I said, be brutally honest with me, I need to learn from my mistakes.

 

[BrasseurGeorges]

Sounds like you already have. Do it over. Do whatever you want with the one you've brewed, just depends if you want to tie up the carboy.

I am sorry to hear that though...

 

[sweetcell]

if you're going to buy more supplies to re-do the kriek, you could also buy some other yeast (maybe a belgian strain?) and a bucket to ferment out your first batch. you could go cheap and just use some dry yeast.

 

[Starganderfish]

Well the brew is already in the primary and fermenting away with the Lambic yeast. I guess I'll give it a couple weeks then do a taste test. If it's as bad as I expect it'll go down the drain. If it's not too bad I may just throw a few bags of frozen rasberries in to make a pseudo-Framboise (rasberries are cheap from the supermarket). I've already got a fresh Lambic yeast coming in my next order and I'll have a spare fermentor available in a couple of weeks so Kriek Mark 2 will be on the cards for August. I may end up writing this one off as a learning experience.

 

[dcHokie]

Other sidenotes for the rebrew:

Most of the jars of morello cherries I've seen are in syrup, I'd make sure the ones you have aren't in a syrup.

And, wait to add the fruit until after the 6-12 months aging (or after 12-18 months aging if you're patient enough).

 

[exhumedatbirth]

Personally I would not worry about it...let the beer age the 12-18 months, add the cherries and then see what happens..My first sour was the Dawon's Kriek kit from NB...my burner died halfway through the boil...had to drive to HD and get another burner..then get the wort back up to a boil after nearly an hour of being off the heat..Long story short, three years later I brought the remaining bottles over to my brew club meeting, they went over very well...happy accidents happen all the time.

 

[tugbucket]

^^ ditto

Is it worth letting this brew continue as a generic Lambic, and save my Cherries for a proper Kriek?

I would go that route. I would let the already brewed one ride it out. Stick it in a closet and forget about it. Leave it a year then taste it.

We've only brewed up five sours so far, only bottled two. It's pretty crazy how they change flavors during the process. You might be pleasantly surprised come next Christmas

 

[Rugrad02]

I too say leave it alone for a while. It took me a minute to search my copy but here is an excerpt from Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow regarding sparge temps and extraction:

"The higher temperature [sparge] will leach considerable tannins from the mash, something found undesirable in other beers. The tannins will precipitate out or break down over the long period of fermentation and do not contribute a noticeable astringency in the resulting beer."

Granted he was referring to excessive tannin extraction from the mash due to the higher than normal sparge temps, I still say that you should leave it. You may very well be pleasantly surprised in the end.

 

[Starganderfish]

Thanks for all the advice. I tasted it last night and was pleasantly surprised. Very sweet thanks to the unfermented sugars and hardly any taste of tannin. I think i'll shove this to the back of the brew cupboard and let it age for 6 months and if it's still good, add the Cherries. Then give another 6-12 months. Sigh. I was half planning on doing this as a quick 3-4 month job as the NB extract recipe suggests but I guess this is my cue to let it age properly. Damn, I didn't wanna wait for a year or more to get some cherry goodness.
As for the Morello cherries, they're just in juice, no added suger. The Sour Cherry juice appeared at the supermarket the very week I decided to brew a Kriek. Have never seen it before or since so I took that as a sign! (I bought a whole case). It lists some sugar in the ingredients and is made from reconstituted juice so I'll go easy on it, treat it as an extra additive for a bit more cherry zing.

 

[nofootbreak]

I almost used some sour cherry juice in a flanders style red one gallon batch I had, but I think I remember doing the math, and just to carb the beer it would have diluted it far more than I wanted.

I stumbled across tart cherry concentrate at a whole foods and bought that a few days later. Carbed that batch with it and a few bottles from random batches after that to get a good taste for the stuff. Tastes great in my opinion. No medicinal or off putting flavors that I was worried about at first.

This is what I used. http://stantonorchards.com/

29g sugar/ fl oz

I would use good fresh fruit every time, but I think this would be a good substitute.