First lambic - 7 months old

After 7 months in our new 30liter oak barrel, we thought it was time to transfer our first lambic to some demijohns. The beer is more than sour enough already, but we were especially afraid that the wood-character would become too dominant. And of course, we had some new beer ready to fill it again.

We also decided to add 6kg of sour cherry's (in dutch: Gorsemkriek) to 20 liters of the lambic. 7 months is generally considered too early to add fruit. But we took the risk.

Classic lambic-brewers state that a good lambic must go through a stage of being 'sick'. At this stage (starting mostly in spring, when the temperatures rise again) the pellicle becomes ropy/slimy and the lambic itself oily. When the temperatures drop again, the oily-character dissappears again. After this, the beer is ready for blending or adding fruit. The ropiness would be the result of some kind of pediococcus (also known as bacillus viscosus bruxellencis).

I'm not sure if this so-called 'sickness' always manifests itself when making sour beers/ home made lambics. Are these type of pediococcus part of the wyeast-lambic blend? Or do they come from some of the bottle dregs I added? No idea. Anyway, our lambic was definitely sick already. I tasted a little about 3 weeks ago, and it seemed normal. Today, it was very oily. We'll see what will happen with the cherry's, adding them to a sick lambic. The plan is to leave the sour cherries at colder temperatures (now it's about 10° celcius - but it will rise in spring) for a few months in the demijohn. After that we'll transfer the kriek to a new demijohn untill it's ready for bottling (I guess after summer). Curious when the oily-character will disappear.

The remaining 10liter will be split later in two parts: one for further ageing, one probably for adding raspberries to.

The gravity-reading of the lambic indicated 1012, which is still surprisingly high considering the fact we did a fairly standard infusion mash and the warmer temperatures of summer and fall. Maybe the measurement isn't really accurate because of the viscosity??