Starganderfish
Member
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.
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.