first time lambic...gone wrong?

So I tried my hand at my first lambic about a week and half ago. We did the full lambic mash per wild brews, which was a pretty intense mash for someone with only a handful of all grain batches under my belt.

Anyways, my LHBS sold my special ordered yeast (Wyeast 3278) so I had to wait an extra week to pitch. That day was the only one I had to brew for the next few weeks so I went ahead and brewed.

Let it sit in the basement of my friends where we brewed with an orange stopper on the carboy for about 6 days. On the 7th day there was full krausen, but we'd pitched no yeast. He went ahead and pitched the yeast the the LHBS almost sold again that day.

Not sure if we got a wild yeast and if we did how to know if its any good. My friend opened the top and said when he smelled it he almost gagged.

Should I just try again? Or did I get a truly spontaneous fermentation that is good?

(The picture below is before adding any yeast)

well only time will tell. Don't dump it, just let it do its thing and taste it in a year or when the pectile stuff falls.

Well unless you really need the carboy, I'd definitely let it sit for a few months to see what happens. At worst you'll have 5 gallons of malt vinegar. Well, technically at worst it will be toxic, but that's extremely rare, and only a problem if it doesn't smell strongly acidic.

FYI, its going to be really, really unlikely that this beer will be great. Spontaneous fermentation in America is very rarely successful. We just don't have the same bugs in the air as Belgium. Caveat: I'm only just getting into sours now, and I've never done spontaneous, I've just read about it a lot lately.

ghpeel said:

FYI, its going to be really, really unlikely that this beer will be great. Spontaneous fermentation in America is very rarely successful. We just don't have the same bugs in the air as Belgium. Caveat: I'm only just getting into sours now, and I've never done spontaneous, I've just read about it a lot lately.

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I somewhat disagree. While it's true that the Belgians have it better, Jolly Pumpkin, New Glarus, and Russian River are a few examples of breweries that have done fully spontaneously fermented beers.

I had a wild yeast take over one of my beers because of a dumb mistake on my part but other than the fact that I didn't give it time to finish, causing all the bottles to be gushers, the beer was unaffected.

Besides, we're most likely looking at one extra yeast in the mix of bugs that was pitched. It could have a negative effect, but even then I think it would be less noticeable than it would be in an American ale because of all the competing flavors from the other bugs.

I've got a starter in the primary of 5526, smells like cherry & cheese soaked feet. I'm going on faith as well, brewing Saturday, racking a nice malty wort on top of it. Push through, it should turn out well.

not sure if i have a screw loose or not, but "cherries and soaked feet" sound like pretty good qualities in a sour... lol...

So vtbrews1, how is this beer progressing? What does it smell like?

I'm gonna give it a smell tomorrow as its at a friends house where there was a more stable fermentation temperature. I'll update tomorrow.

Smelled this one yesterday and it smelled a little bit funky in a good way. It definitely doesn't smell like any other beers I've brewed, and I didn't get the same "gagging" smell my friend got so hopefully the good yeasts have taken over. At this point I'm just gonna let it sit and ride it out.

Hey if it smelled funky but in a good way then I think you've got a good chance that it turns out great! good luck with it!

So just an update about 9 months later. This beer has an amazing brett nose, but interestingly not even the slightest hint of sourness. The barnyard possibility in a lambic seems to have dominated the flavor. It doesn't have any seriously discernible off flavor from the true "spontaneous" ferment.

So I haven't really started researching into it, but I'm considering re-pitching lacto to attempt to get sourness or is that just a futile effort.

Unless your IBU's are 10 or lower, Lacto by itself won't do a darn thing. You should pitch Pedio to get the sourness. Go find some sour beer dregs that you know have more than straight Brett and throw that in there. There should be some lists out there of what commercial beers have live bugs.

On the flip side, if you just can't wait and are happy enough with the Bretty funk, then you could just add some lactic acid when bottling to give you enough tang to complement the funk. I don't have any experience with that, but it should be straightforward enough.