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The 'vinnie nails' are a special type of stainless (the same type that is used for marine work) that is more inert than normal stainless. I'm not sure how much that would matter but storing a normal stainless nail in acidic liquid might be problematic in the long run. Around me the hardware...

If you add dregs from something like consecration then you will also be adding pedio, which you may not want to do in a fast turn around beer like the one you have planned.

I had been sitting back on this as I don't have any experience using only a pitched blend, but adding dregs would increase the microbial diversity, especially dregs from spontaneous beers, so I would expect that to add complexity. That's not really advanced detective work on my part... I...

As others have said here, if you decide to try to culture it anyway go with the blond for culturing the yeast (I assume that is what folks mean when they say 6, and not the long since discontinued red cap 6). The blond is a great beer, probably my favorite of the westy beers, so even if you...

Hi Sippin37. I wouldn't worry about this beer yet. Keep in mind that most of the Belgian Lambic beers you may have tried spend 1-3 years in oak before being bottled, and then also have a long transit and time on the shelf in the US. The blend does have Saccharomyces, brett, lacto and pedio, so...

Generally a sour mash is done with the intention of killing off/severely inhibiting everything other than lactobacillus so it is probably not a preferred thing to do with a mixed culture that you want to preserve. While 90F probably won't kill off your Sacch it will stress them out and may lead...

From what you wrote, it sounds like your heater and probe are in the same liquid. But it also sounds like your probe was measuring the beer temp. Do you have your heater is inside the carboy rather than in a water bath around it? I agree that rising 20 degrees in 20 minutes is pretty unlikely so...

If you have space, time, and some brett around you could try it out. But generally brett enhances phenolic character rather than diminishes it. And there are enough ways for soured beer to go wrong/come out not tasting that great when done well that I wouldn't bother trying to sour/brett a bad...

Unless it is an irreplaceable strain of yeast, I would just get a new pack/vial. As you know the viability is super low, there may be more mutation and if there is anything else in there it will have a good opportunity to make a potentially undesirable impact on the final beer (not to mention...

You're right, there is no set number. Water doesn't contract and expand very much with temperature compared to air so if you want to minimize the airlock suck back fill your carboys all the way to the top.

Introducing O2 to promote sourness would promote acetic acid, which most people try to avoid. I think that would be a bad idea. But if you wanted acetic character you could blend in vinegar to taste.

I don't think you need to worry about the sanitary characteristics of the air bubbling in. You're right, the cap is not a sanitary filter. But most of the dust would likely be scrubbed out/stick to one of the many wet surfaces in the process of getting through the holes, passing along a damp...

Here is that better bottle study about different closure types that I mentioned: http://www.mocon.com/pdf/optech/Closures%20-%20Oxygen%20Passage%20Study.pdf

Yeah, I know with sours that there is still activity for a while, but the active CO2 evolution is pretty minor after a few months. Many producers who are fermenting in barrels solid bung their barrels pretty early on. And I know a barrel will breath more than a carboy but I'm not sure pressure...

This is going to depend a lot on your specific conditions like how much headspace there is and how full the airlock is so I'm not sure that there is a set number out there that one could give. I also don't know how much you ought to worry about it. I wouldn't be too concerned about it. If you...

I can't dive a lot of advice from experience here (I don't often brew european style beers with North American/new world hops because often, for my palate, the two clash) but I would lean toward less resinous hops and away from something like simcoe. I think fruit-forward hops, for example a lot...

Sweet, sounds good! If I am going to age a funky/sour saison that long in the carboy then I rack it. I do that to get it off the trub as well as to minimize the headspace in the carboy. Though my preference is for racking here, I don't think it would be awful to leave it on the trub.

I would pitch multiple packs or grow up the yeast a bit. I know you'll have different growth rates and maybe a drift in the culture ratios but 1 pack will be a massive underpitch. I don't know about the Roeselare blend but I've had good results splitting ECY02 flemish red blend and growing up to...

I've been in a couple different Belgian lambic cellars and the temperature is definitely below 60F. Some are closer to 50 than 60, and may dip below that on cold nights. Lambic and gueuze in bottles also mature at cellar temperatures and those are also below 60. I think you'd be totally fine in...

What sort of beer were you going for ehre? The tricky thing about the lambic blend that you used is that it has a more diverse mix of microbes which work at different speeds and on different components of your beer. For that sort of mixed fermentation you are going to want to allow more time...