Infected Lambic

[Ciderman]

So 12 days ago I brewed 2 batches of lambic and split into four fermenters. As these were larger than normal batches I had trouble chilling and got impatient and threw into my fermenting fridge at zero at 11:30pm to get down to yeast pitching temp. It was perhaps somewhere in the 40's. Next morning one of the fermenters was already bubbling. Of the 20 odd beers I've made this has happened once before and I tipped it.

It was a rookie mistake as the fermenter was sanitised and cleaned a couple of weeks back but was just holding rainwater. Retrospectively it was obviously a breeding feast for bacteria and I didn't even think to clean it after using the water. Idiot...

So said beer has the same character as the one I tipped once before. Slight whiff of DMS, creamed corn/ celery etc but smells slightly lambic ish. It's finished fermenting around 1.010

The other three fermenters are still going and have a lovely lemon sherbet aroma.

I can't risk spoiling the whole batch with 1/4 infected so I've decided not to blend it. I'll just have to make another batch to top up the barrel.

Ordinarily I would just chuck the infected batch, but I wonder being a lambic could it come good if stored it in keg or something?

 

[manticle]

Your guess is as good as anyone's.
Home lambic. I think keeping it separate is a good idea but lambic is a labour of patience, love and time so if you have thise, you can see what your house micros could bring to the party.

 

[Ciderman]

In isolation it smells not too bad, but I might just keg 18 litres of it as an experiment and see what happens. I still pitched the lambic yeast so it might eventually eat away at whatever got it started.

 

[dannymars]

I'd be leaving it for 6 months + at least...

 

[GalBrew]

How do you get an infected lambic?

 

[Ciderman]

How do you get an infected lambic?

Probably poor choice of words on my part. What I meant is that it was a spontaneous fermentation with whatever wild yeast was around. It might turn out ok i didn't want to compromise the 75 Litres of what I know is good with 25L of beer I'm not sure about.

 

[dannymars]

If you have proper airlocks on them all and don't let them run dry then there shouldn't be any cross contamination.

You should only be blending by taste anyway. If it tastes bad in 1 year... read through this... http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Category:Off_Flavors and decide if it's something that will "age-out" or something that needs to be dumped.

 

[GalBrew]

Probably poor choice of words on my part. What I meant is that it was a spontaneous fermentation with whatever wild yeast was around. It might turn out ok i didn't want to compromise the 75 Litres of what I know is good with 25L of beer I'm not sure about.

There is always a gamble with spontaneous ferments but it might turn out amazing in the long run. I would be aging it for at least a year and see how it goes.