Don Quijote clone recipe

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Anyone have any idea on a recipe for this? I know I could get Lambrusca grape juice, but what the rest of it would need I have no clue. Anyone who brews have any idea on what the flavor profile might be?

Thanks!

well, you’d need the specific microflora from Cantillon. In that regard, it’d be more of an analog if you were to make one, rather than a clone ;)

So probably a bottle of cantillon would be where to start? Probably use the dregs to do a ferment with?

Originally posted by Unclerudy
So probably a bottle of cantillon would be where to start? Probably use the dregs to do a ferment with?

Without buying lambic from the brewery the best that you can do is use dregs.

Originally posted by Unclerudy
Anyone have any idea on a recipe for this? I know I could get Lambrusca grape juice, but what the rest of it would need I have no clue.

I have not tried to clone this beer, nor have I actually had it, but I have brewed with grape juice in the past. Also, this description kind of helps:

"A fruit lambic brewed with Italian grapes similar to Concord grapes or Fox grapes (Vitis Labrusca) brewed exclusively for a Florence, Italy, Pub in 2008."

If I had to guess I’d do something like this:

For 5.5 gallons

5 lbs Pils
5 lbs Wheat

Single infusion mash at 156F

Boil for an hour without hops

Cool and pitch a 2 pint starter made solely with the dreggs from a bottle of Cantillon.

Ferment for 2 weeks at ambient and then rack to secondary with 46 oz. (4 cylinders) of Concord grape concentrate (available in your grocer’s freezer as Welch’s organic Concord grape juice concentrate).

Ferment in secondary for 6 -18 months or whenever you want to bottle it.

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by Unclerudy
Anyone have any idea on a recipe for this? I know I could get Lambrusca grape juice, but what the rest of it would need I have no clue.

I have not tried to clone this beer, nor have I actually had it, but I have brewed with grape juice in the past. Also, this description kind of helps:

"A fruit lambic brewed with Italian grapes similar to Concord grapes or Fox grapes (Vitis Labrusca) brewed exclusively for a Florence, Italy, Pub in 2008."

If I had to guess I’d do something like this:

For 5.5 gallons

5 lbs Pils
5 lbs Wheat

Single infusion mash at 156F

Boil for an hour without hops

Cool and pitch a 2 pint starter made solely with the dreggs from a bottle of Cantillon.

Ferment for 2 weeks at ambient and then rack to secondary with 46 oz. (4 cylinders) of Concord grape concentrate (available in your grocer’s freezer as Welch’s organic Concord grape juice concentrate).

Ferment in secondary for 6 -18 months or whenever you want to bottle it.

What about for an extract recipe? I do not have the space to move to AG yet but would love to brew a sour for my wife.

Originally posted by HornyDevil

Originally posted by Unclerudy
Anyone have any idea on a recipe for this? I know I could get Lambrusca grape juice, but what the rest of it would need I have no clue.

I have not tried to clone this beer, nor have I actually had it, but I have brewed with grape juice in the past. Also, this description kind of helps:

"A fruit lambic brewed with Italian grapes similar to Concord grapes or Fox grapes (Vitis Labrusca) brewed exclusively for a Florence, Italy, Pub in 2008."

If I had to guess I’d do something like this:

For 5.5 gallons

5 lbs Pils
5 lbs Wheat

Single infusion mash at 156F

Boil for an hour without hops

Cool and pitch a 2 pint starter made solely with the dreggs from a bottle of Cantillon.

Ferment for 2 weeks at ambient and then rack to secondary with 46 oz. (4 cylinders) of Concord grape concentrate (available in your grocer’s freezer as Welch’s organic Concord grape juice concentrate).

Ferment in secondary for 6 -18 months or whenever you want to bottle it.

Ive never brewed with juice before but would you really want to add it in there right at the begining of fermentation? If you’ve had something like Lou Pepe Kriek or St Lamvinus fresh the fruit is definitely very sweet and possibly not even entirely fermented.

The standard lambic grain bill is something like 35% unmalted wheat, the rest pils.

Not sure how much of a difference 6 months will make (18 vs 24) but I think most Cantillon fruit beers start with 2 year lambic when the fruit is added and the fruit is only on the beer for a couple months.

Cantillon is usually around 40% unmalted wheat, 60% Pils (not that it matters that much). They also employ a turbid mash, you can find several variations credited to them online and in print. Having done lambics with a variety of mashes I don’t think turbid is a requirement, but I’ve had better luck with it than without it.



Boil for a couple hours with a few ounces of well-aged hops (or aim for ~10 IBUs if you are using fresh hops). THis isn’t as big a deal when not doing a true spontaneous fermentation



Cantillon does one to two years in oak primary before the beer is combined with the fruit in stainless steel tanks, usually for two to three months before bottling. Most of their fruit beers tend to be 2-3 lbs of fruit per gallon, start on the low end (about a gallon of juice mixed with 4 gallons of beer).



I’ve got a batch going now with nothing but Drie Fonteinen dregs that still needs another year or two. Start with a few bottles worth of dregs, and the fresher the better for the bottles to get a more representative sampling of microbes.



If you are lucky it will share some similarities with the original, but it is hard to replicate Cantillon’s process, microbes, barrels, and blending on a small scale. Good luck!

I think the lambrusca grapes are not the grapes to use. I would definately try to find Concord or Fox grapes. Lambrusca are not as sweet and "grapey" as concord and fox (they taste like old school grape jelly that mom used to make my PB & J sandwiches with). Concord should be easy to get, but they are not in season. I don’t know very much about fox grapes, my wife’s grandfather calls any sweet wild grape a fox grape. My friend is an amateur wine maker and he makes Lambrusca wine at least once a year so it can’t be that hard to track them down if you did decide to use them.

Originally posted by Steve_0
What about for an extract recipe? I do not have the space to move to AG yet but would love to brew a sour for my wife.

Just sub 6 lbs of wheat DME for the grain.

Originally posted by b3shine
Don’t forget to add plenty of And it’s my balls! for authentic barnyard aromas.

This is actually true.