Beer Forum

I know that warm day temps 75+ F (summer in Western NY) aren’t good for spontaneous ferments. I tried this in the summer with an extra gallon of wort and now have a fine nail polish remover ferment of foulness. Is this a lost gallon? Will this clean up eventually, and if so how long will it take?

I am looking for advice to do this correctly with 5 gallons, so… what day and night temperatures should I look for, and how long to set my 5 gallon coolship out in the vinyard/orchard for spontaneous inoculation and fermentation of a pLambic? Ok, my 5 gallon plastic bucket, but you get the idea.

What success are people having with fermenting in plastic and/or glass and how long are you leaving in each?

I just ran across a thread where someone forgot to pitch the yeast in a starter and it began to ferment. Maybe a couple low grav “starters” without yeast should be made, set out over night in the vinyard throughout the next month or so, and if they have a non-putrid ferment with no off aromas, then pitch that in 5 gallons of properly prepared lambic wort?

Any help and advice are greatly appreciated.

Wild Brews is a great read on all things sour & funky.

I know here in Australia, our wild yeasts dont tend to produce anything worthwile in terms of drinkability. Cant comment on USA in terms of viable wild yeasts.

A wild yeast kicked off in a red ale of mine a while back prior to my pitched yeast kicking off, it tasted like plastic and did not improve at all even after numerous months in a keg.

I would tend not to leave it 'to the gods' and lean towards a lambic yeast blend and/or dregs from some bottled lambics.

In terms of time, a short period of 30mins or so would be more than enough surely to introduce wild yeast.

i think you want it cold enough that there won't be any bugs around. they harber things that you don't wont in your beer. i would say stick it outside when its 50 or below. as for time i'm not sure. maybe you could send allagash an e-mail and ask them how long they did it for. if you do that let us know cuz i wont to know too.

cheer
tom

Definitely check out the thread search on the BBB for this one Aaron. lots of research done with experimentation to boot. I would not set out 5 gallons of wort, but rather use a small starter with a cheesecloth over the top to keep out the larger critters and still allow the wild ones to enter. You will have to give the starter a good overnight outside to capture what you can. Then comes the waiting. It will take probably 2 wks or so for your starter to get going. Once it ferments out, taste it and see if it is "clean" enough to use for a larger ferment. You will have to step this one up several times to have enough yeast to pitch into a full batch, but at least you will know the critters you are dealing with (mostly anyway). You are most likely to pick up pedio/wild brett BTW.