So despite the overwhelming majority of organisms necessary for spontaneous fermentation residing in the barrels and not the air, a koelschip is not done out of tradition? Despite the availability of modern, well-modified malts and melanoidin malts, triple decoctions are done out of necessity and not out of tradition? Perhaps there are similar mechanisms of tradition at play here, and perhaps there are not.
I am not saying that leaving a Flanders red at 80 for 8 weeks is obviously going to make an equivalent product, I am saying that an appeal to authority is not equivalent to understanding and describing a process, and is never a good reason to do something.
I’ll address your comments on coolships, since I am no expert on decoction mashing (here is the guy to speak to on that one:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page).
How did those microbes get into the barrels in the first place? Are you suggesting that the pedio/lacto/brett and whatever other microbes complete the fermentation are not present in the air as well?
I’m not sure how much sour beer brewing you’ve done, but I’d suggest that barrels that contained 2-3 year old beer won’t have many Saccharomyces cells left for primary fermentation of the new wort. There are also all sorts of minor oxidative yeasts (Kloeckera apiculata for example) and thermophilic enterobacteria present in young Lambic that die out as the pH drops and the alcohol rises (that would not be found in the old barrels). As I understand it many Lambic brewers let the beer start fermenting before it goes into the barrels in the "horny" tank. There are also practical considerations, coolships don’t use water to cool, and it costs thousands of dollars to buy a heat exchanger (that needs to be replaced/fixed/maintained).
Turbid mashing similarly pulls out molecules (starches, tannins etc…
in very different ratios than a normal mash would. Just because you can now convert starches to sugars with a single step infusion mash doesn't mean the wort is identical to one made with a more complex mash.
I’ll agree with you that an appeal to authority is not the ideal way to “know” something, but in the absence of a complete understanding of a topic I don’t see an issue with starting your exploration by trying to mimic the techniques of an expert. I don't think anyone fully understands the complexities of the spontaneous fermentation cycle, especially because it has not had the heavy research investment that other areas of brewing have because big breweries aren’t interested in it.
I’m not arguing that all traditional practices are inherently right, I’m just saying that there are often reasons besides flavor/quality that old methods are discarded (cost, time, variable results, lack of traditional ingredient availability). And where is your proof that these traditional practices aren’t the best way to brew?
