I was thinking this over.... I have a backyard wooden shed. I use it to store garden equipment and some patio furniture. I am going to get into sours/gueuze brewing and may buy an old wine barrel. I was wondering if i could turn my shed into a brett-covered environment so i could spontaneously ferment my beer. I'm thinking about something as basic as a Mr Turtle pool, some fans, a shed door kept open a crack and chicken wire preventing unwanted visitors from entering the shed to have an overnight swim. in theory, i can take the dregs from Cantillon and other beer, put it in a starter and, in a few days, put that yeast load into a spray bottle and spray the shed's walls. right? i guess the negative(s) would be if the shed already has yeast/bacteria in its walls and potentially gross local yeast taking over the shed. just wondering if this is a wacky thought or if anyone's tried it. oh, and I live in a big city, so no orchards or fruit trees within close proximity.
sure you could try. but the chances that the environment in a shed is suitable for a favorable yeast are slim. expect the native bacteria to easily out perform anything you introduce. i would not be surprised if you produce a fine vinegar however. if you are the kind that considers the process more rewarding than the final product, then sure. go ahead. just know your chances for producing a good beer, or even any beer, is really small. also, brewers that are using this kind of spontaneous fermentation, where they rely on the natural environment, are using the natural environment. don't expect to artificially re-creat the natural environment of a valley from Belgium in your garden shed. Cheers.
I don't think that's an issue....Cantillon is almost nowhere near any sort of arboreal epicenter....there might be a tree or two in the abandoned lot across the street, though.
Also, if you are using any of the Cantillon Gueuze (and I am assuming most of their other lambics), they use primarily the 3 year old lambic in the blend so the yeast/bacteria will likely be significantly weaker than when they were used in the fermentation process or even in the first two years of aging.
i'm finding the responses to be interesting. they're kind of all across the board. First, Cantillon: i thought that its believed that they have their natural bacteria a) due to the river, b) due to orchards that (use to) ring Brussels. Yes, I know that Cantillon's nowhere near tress and very close to a train station. but they somehow have that mix of good bugs. so billandsuz and knifestyles, your posts kind of contradict one another. introducing brett and bugs into a shed should, in theory, populate the shed with something. no clue what bugs are living there or if you did a pre-sand and scrub, but i don't see a reason why you couldn't eventually create an environment that would be positive to spontaneous fermentation. Oddnotion: thought that The Mad Fermentationist claims that adding dregs will improve your gueuze attempts and will, in fact, be better than wyeth or white yeast starters.
you will get spontaneous fermentation. but do not expect your introduced yeast to have much chance against the naturally occurring bacteria. if you were to capture some reptiles from Samoa and fenced them in your back yard, you will have some reptiles wandering around but you would not have recreated the environment that produced the reptiles. the reptiles would not have much chance to thrive, or even survive against the native species as the native species can tolerate the weather, exploit the food supply, defend against predators that are present, reproduce successfully and so on. another way to see it might be to spray any yeast you like on your toilet. then, introduce the toilet bowl water in your wort to start fermentation. aside from the fact that it is gross, you can be certain you will not be getting beer out of this experiment. so, innoculate your shed with any yeast you like, but unless you can provide those yeast with everything they need to survive AND out perform the native bacteria, you will not have success. the native bacteria will likely rule the day and the fermented product will likely not be very palatable. of the countless numbers of yeast varieties in the world, a vanishingly small percentage are good at making beer. Cheers.
Sorry, I wasn't attempting to make any sort of scientific point here. I realize that the flora in the aether around Cantillon is as ancient as it is tasty, just making a note of their current location in relation to any sort of buggy hotbed. And more so that your caveat of living in a "big city" really shouldn't have any sort of implied consequence when it comes to attracting those wild critters (I can certainly visualize just about any urban location prior to building booms being flush with green spaces). The bigger issue here is the shed itself....so in that respect, I absolutely agree with billandsuz.
From what I have read/heard/in the process of doing, adding dregs will still do some work and add complexity but what I am trying to say is that the bugs specifically in Cantillon may not be as aggressive and strong due to their age and how long they have been sitting idle with no added sugars. I also worry that there are tons of bacteria (and I am sure other yeast as well) already populating your shed from whatever species are more local to you. They will more than likely be in much higher concentrations, more dominant, and stronger than introducing a little bit of dregs worked up from a couple bottles of Cantillon. On the flip side, who knows, maybe the Belgian yeast/bacteria could overpower what is already in the shed but I feel that a lot would be needed (more than a starters worth) to get them to be the dominant population for even a short amount of time. I would also think that you would need to replenish the bugs every so often as the native species will continue to be added through the air while the Cantillon bugs will not naturally be entering your shed. I like the idea but I would hate to see so much time invested (a year plus for these beers) in producing vinegar, at least the ingredients for producing sours are pretty inexpensive with the exception of the yeast. If you do wind up giving it a try I would love to hear how the experiment goes.
Interesting concept, introducing non-native bacteria and yeast into an new environment and hoping they will take flourish. I'm thinking you might need something more than a shed to do this. Maybe a biosphere? like a green house or something.
I've also heard that (from an interview from a brewer on the brewing network) that the equipment at cantillion is literally covered in grime and that is the source of the wonderful bugs.
Sam Smiths did something similar at the old Melbourne's brewery in Stamford. Spraying the building with lambic. Not sure if they've been able to genuinely spontaneously ferment there.
I would think that you would need to do this to have any shot of actually getting some non-native bugs to take up residence in the wood. Not sure where you live, but that will play a major role. This is a cool, fun idea, but one wrought with lots of areas to trip up and generally be disappointed. definitely experiment, but at least brew some batches using take some tried and true fermentation techniques, as well. re: cantillon's location, yes, it is in the middle of a small-ish city, but that city has expanded considerably since the brewery was built. its is still certainly surrounded by loads of farmland, orchards, etc. although the crops have changed considerably over the years. Cantillon has the advantage in that it has had a heck of a lot of time and many batches of lambic wort produced, spilled, and from the looks of it, never cleaned, to allow the good stuff to get take up in to the walls, dirt, dust and cobwebs, and probably most notably, the barrels that are used time and time again. The entirety of the ecosystem of a lambic brewery, combined with the brewer's technique, ingredients, equipment, is what allows spontaneous fermentation to occur with relatively reliable results. And then there's some places that can knock it out of the park on their first go at it.
I think this experiment has a high potential of drawing all kinds of bugs. Bacterial, fungal and animal alike. But hey, if you want to give it a try, why not? What if all the conditions are somehow perfect for great beer? Would it help if he first cleaned the shed like crazy in an effort to get rid of as much bacteria as possible than bretted it up? Side note, I did see on BrewingTV one of the guys they work with had turned a old fish cleaning station into a coolship. Obviously a pact with the devil. Yes, I suppose Brussels is "smallish" - and it certainly surrounded by farmland. That's pretty much Belgium in a nutshell; farm- and woodland dotted by villages, towns and small cities.
