[hopaddicted]

I am planning on brewing my first lambic shortly, a Cranberry Lambic (5G batch). Any recommendations for a recipe? I am tentatively looking to keep it simple:

6 lbs Six row pale malt
3 lbs Unmalted Red Wheat
1 lb Dark Munich Malt
2 oz Willamette (vintage 2007)
Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat

I have some rice hulls, not too sure how much open, but plan to add some to compensate for the large quantity of wheat. Probably going to try to do a turbid mash with full array of rests and shoot for a high mash temp (155 degrees) for the main mash, I'm a sucker for the traditional methods (even if they aren't needed with the grains available now). I'm going to add the cranberries and a Lambic Blend or Roeselare Ale Blend to the secondary. Fermenting in plastic the whole time.

Any suggestions would be appreciated...

[babalu87]

We did a turbid mash Lambic back in June.

Pretty much followed the article from BYO's August 2008 issue.

A few things:

Rice hulls are really essential (at least with my system) but they did improve run-off.
Maybe have them on stand-by?

I would only worry about the liquor/grist ratios at the turbid pulls, other than that if its off by a little no worries.
Have a pot of boiling water for your infusions and stir, stir, stir then check the temperature before adding more water.

The turbid pull will scorch/burn easily! Keep this in mind as you heat it to 190. Next time we'll have a piece of plate steel to use as a heat disperser.
We did a three + hour boil on ours. It is currently sitting in a wine barrel bubbling away.

Good luck with it, recipe looks fine to me. Maybe go with a little Vienna over the Munich?

[richardt]

Get the fresh or flash frozen cranberries and freeze them (to burst the cells), and then macerate/puree them. 

Adding to the boil drives off a lot of the aroma and sets the pectin (which causes haze)--this can be alleviated by using pectinase (enzyme) in the fermenter or by just waiting until the kettle cools down to around 160 F (don't have my books around--check the temp, but I think it has to be above 140 F) and tossing them in to help sanitize them w/o setting the pectin.

I made a cranberry and brown sugar altbier with dried cranberries that I soaked in water, boiled, and pureed.  Good/different.  Going the fresh/frozen route should be easier.

[hopaddicted]

Thanks, haven't used Vienna yet, so may try. Was planning on using frozen berries, never thought about sanitizing them, so I may pasturize as suggested. I have Jul/Aug 08 and was planning on using that schedule.