Right now, I'm eating pretzel chips and hummus, and drinking a very fine homebrewed Belgian style Witbier whilst waiting for the first of three 5 gallon batches of Flanders Red wort to boil.
Now, some people might say that it's a loft goal to brew 15 gallons of sour beer on your very first attempt. I say that it's only marginally more difficult to dump 15 gallons of undrinkable beer than it is to dump 5 gallons. However, if the beer is good, it takes a LOT longer to consume 15 gallons of beer than it does to consume 5 gallons. I figure that if I'm going to wait a year or longer for a beer to finish, I might as well have a decent amount of it on hand when it's done.
Hopefully I'll come up with a few pictures of the process. At the very least, I'll need to get some pics of my long-term storage vessel.

So long for now.

Dave,

I look forward to seeing the pictures! I cannot even imagine waiting a year to enjoy your beer. You certainly have patience to brew something like this.

Keep us posted on the progress.

Randy

Well, I didn't really get a chance to take many pictures. I did manage to get a pic of my Wyeast Roeselare smack pack sitting next to the glass of Belgian style Witbier I was drinking. Absolute beauty, if I ever did see it. To me, at least.
The first brew day went off without a hitch, and I ended up with 6 gallons of 1.060 wort in the carboy. I pitched the Roeselare yeast at about 3 pm yesterday afternoon, and it's juuust now starting to percolate a little bit.
Day two had a late start due to some unforseen circumstances. I managed to get back on track a bit, and I'm sparging now. Same recipe, same procedure, same Witbier to drink. Deja Vu man!
If everything goes well, tomorrow will make the final installment of wort, and maybe I can start taking pics of the ferment. After all, that's the really exciting part, right!
I will say this, though. I went old school with this Flanders. No fancy propane burners (I used the stove), no fancy chillers (plain ole water bath). The only equipment I used is my old 5 gallon gott cooler mash tun (homemade, 35 dollars total), a 12 quart stock pot (9 bucks), and my crawfish pot (got it so long ago, don't remember how much it costed). Lately, I've been making lots of beers this way. Especially the ones that don't use any late hop additions. Just goes to show you that you don't need a bunch of equipment to make all grain beer.

Randy wrote:You certainly have patience to brew something like this.

The key to patience in brewing, is to always have beer on tap and fermenters open to brew more. I only have 3 carboys, so there's no way I could even make this much long-term beer if I didn't have my storage vessel. This Flanders will only remain in my carboys for 1-3 weeks. After that, I'll be racking it all to the same vessel for souring/aging. I'll probably hide it in the closet or something. After all, out of sight, out of mind!

What sort of "vessel" are you using to store 15g of beer long-term? I'm intrigued...

curlyfat wrote:What sort of "vessel" are you using to store 15g of beer long-term? I'm intrigued...

Eh, it's nothing fancy. I took a 15 gallon plastic drum and modified it a little to (hopefully) make it more acceptable for long term sour beer storage. Only time will tell if it works well. I've still got to build a stand for it and my wife wants to add some decoration. After that, I'll post a few pictures. Until then, the link will take you to the actual drum I purchased.

From left to right, third batch to first:


Wyeast Roeselare next to Belgian Style Witbier:

Dave
Interesting......... I came on to post my follow up on my first sour beer...and here you were. After 6 months in secondary fermenter I bottled my Lambic. You recommended half pack of dry yeast,morew then anyone else recommended, Sounded good to me so I did it. I bottled it about a two months ago and let condition for 3 wks (60deg) before trying it. Turns out carbonation was very low, barely present. So I took a bottle and conditioned at room temp. for two weeks then tried it..... no change. So I'll continue to let it condition and try it again. If I were to recommend to anyone trying it I'd say a full bag of dry yeast /5 gal. Taste is definetly on the money perhaps a little to sour, maybe 4-5 monthes in secondary.

Good luck with yours lets keep this going and figure it out....10,000 $ question 'Just what is the right amount of yeast for lambic ..or is there to many variables for a answer'

Chris

Hey Chris,

Sorry to hear that your beer didn't carbonate properly. Honestly, a half pack of dry yeast should have been more than enough for carbonation, provided the yeast were still viable when you pitched them. How much sugar did you prime the beer with? Did you rehydrate the yeast prior to pitching them in the bottling bucket? I've had mead sit in secondary for long enough that all the yeast dropped out, and a half pack of dry yeast has always done the trick for me, provided that I used enough priming sugar.

If your yeast was good, I would look for problems elsewhere. A half package of yeast is really almost overkill when it comes to bottling.

Thanks Dave
I was worried about blowing up bottles.. but yes I Reconstituted and maybe should have added more sugar then 3/4 cup, Perhaps other problems try.. try again.....