Hot primary for lambic

Hey all, I started a lambic on Sunday with Wyeast 1214 (going to pitch bugs in a couple of weeks), and was lax on the temperature control because I figured it wasn't as necessary for a lambic. I pitched at 64F, but sure enough it was up at 73F after a day and 78F after 1.5 days. I got out the bucket of water and wet towel to cool it down this morning, but after reading a lot about banana bombs with 1214 I am curious how much of this would come through in a lambic. Will the 18-24 months of aging and the sourness/funk on top help to mellow out any of the crazy esters that probably got created?

brett will metabolize esters, but Im not too sure about fusels

How were you measuring your temps?

If I were you I would taste the beer

Fermometer, so it's the actual fermentation temperature (ambient is 70F or a bit lower - those yeasties are going crazy). I guess I'll give it a taste after a couple of weeks to see what it's like. I imagine it won't be too bad - it probably wouldn't be great on its own, but I'm still hoping that won't matter much for a lambic. Anyone else have experience with this?

So more worrying... bubbling stopped within four or five days, and ten days after brew day the gravity is down to around 1.007. Is this high or low for the yeast-only ferment? I did a turbid mash, so I'd expect the wort to have more unfermentable sugars, and I'm a bit worried about whether there is still enough sugar to end up with a nice and sour beer. The gravity sample tastes fine at least...

bjacokes said:

So more worrying... bubbling stopped within four or five days, and ten days after brew day the gravity is down to around 1.007. Is this high or low for the yeast-only ferment? I did a turbid mash, so I'd expect the wort to have more unfermentable sugars, and I'm a bit worried about whether there is still enough sugar to end up with a nice and sour beer. The gravity sample tastes fine at least...

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It is pretty low, although I'm a big fan of pitching all the bugs at the start of fermentation. I'm surprised a turbid mash didn't leave more fermentables, what were your rest temps?

Some malto-dextrin would probably be a good idea so the bugs hve something to chew on for the next year or two.

120F, 133F (then pulled+heated 1qt), 150F (pulled+heated 4qts), 162F (pulled+heated the rest). The rests might have been on the long side though, because the sparging went very slowly.

What sort of gravity would you generally be looking for after a week or two of fermentation? I'll go for the maltodextrin but need to figure out how much to add.

bjacokes said:

120F, 133F (then pulled+heated 1qt), 150F (pulled+heated 4qts), 162F (pulled+heated the rest). The rests might have been on the long side though, because the sparging went very slowly.

What sort of gravity would you generally be looking for after a week or two of fermentation? I'll go for the maltodextrin but need to figure out how much to add.

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~1.015 for most of my sours when they go to secondary, but I leave Lambics in primary so I often don't take a reading for months after pitching.