Should I Not Oxygenate Primary Lambic Wort?

I don't wanna bother JZ with another line of questions on this so I'm just going to throw it out there:

I'm brewing a lambic (which will one day be a kriek) and going JZ-style: fermenting with clean ale yeast first, then racking to secondary and adding bugs there. This is what I did with my Flanders Red (which finished at 1.019 with the S-05, which I think is a bit low), and the trick is to have a lackluster ale fermentation so that you have low attenuation and thus leave behind more sugars than usual for the bugs to munch on. On the show, he mentions keeping it a little cold, maybe 65f, which I'm going to do, and I'll also mash a little high and maybe even add some maltodextrin powder. But I was also thinking that I could stunt the ale fermentation by simply not oxygenating the wort.

What say ye?

 

I like the no oxygen idea and fermenting at 65. I think that should give you a low attenuation without really harming the fermentation that does occur.

 

If you're fermenting with Saccharomyces first, then it really isn't going to be a lambic (or a plambic, if you're gonna be anal about it).

Are you planning a turbid mash? That is what is going to leave a lot of the unfermentables available for the wild yeast and bacteria to work on.

 

Having never done a Lambic before, and being quite terrified of waiting a year and a half and finding out something's not right about it, I'm pretty much following JZ's instructions to a tee. I even emailed him directly to ask about a few things. Me, I'm more concerned with the quality of the beer than with adhering to traditional Belgian technique restrictions. If it means I can't call it a lambic or a kriek, that's cool---it'll be Evan's Oude Sour F*ckin' Cherry Bier. As long as it's a good sour beer.

Anyway, what Jamil says is, unless you plan on blending young and old batches (which I don't, since I don't have a dozen extra carboys to spare for 2 years), this method of weakly fermenting out the maltose with ale yeast first, then getting the bugs to finish the job, gives you the correct sourness without having to worry about blending.