anyone opening their bottle of 3 Fonteinin?

[grub]

So what's the consensus, straight 3F or blend? Eitherway I will build up a starter with the 3f dreg. My plans now are to start 2x1gal jugs and then combine them in my 3gal carboy with sour cherry juice. Not sure on timing for adding the cherry juice however. I've brew for quite a few years now but never with bugs.

100% brett fermentations aren't nearly as funky as blended, so the initial suggestion to blend with some regular ale yeast is likely what you want if you're aiming kriek-ish. Though what you've cultured from the bottle may already be a blend - tough to know without doing some lab analysis.

[atomeyes]

So what's the consensus, straight 3F or blend? Eitherway I will build up a starter with the 3f dreg. My plans now are to start 2x1gal jugs and then combine them in my 3gal carboy with sour cherry juice. Not sure on timing for adding the cherry juice however. I've brew for quite a few years now but never with bugs.

100% brett fermentations aren't nearly as funky as blended, so the initial suggestion to blend with some regular ale yeast is likely what you want if you're aiming kriek-ish. Though what you've cultured from the bottle may already be a blend - tough to know without doing some lab analysis.

so here's the fun, confusing thing. and i'm going by memory, so pardon me if i err.

3F was using lambic that it got from Boon, Girardin and Lindemans. he would sometimes brew his own and blend with those 3 to taste, but stopped brewing his own due to a fire in his facility. now, he's brewing again and blending with some/all of the above.

so what 3F may have is lambic that may have some bugs that are found at those breweries (unless it's "pasteurized" or totally clean lambic. that, i don't know).

then there's the issue of which bug(s) are in 3F. odds are that there's a wild sacc in there. but if the 3F you're drinking is a blend of 1,2 and 3 year old lambic, one can assume that the sacc is incredibly weakened that adding to a starter or pitching as secondary will do little to rouse the sacc.

doing agar plating will help isolate the bugs (and read up on what the american did with cantillon iris plating. very interesting stuff. i have one of the isolates at home and it is majorly fucked up. no idea what to do with it. def not for primary fermentation), but without having incubators and 3-4 different types of agar and microscopes, you can't accurately determine you have an isolate. and, in the end, do you care if you have the isolate or a group of bugs?

in the end, do what they did hundreds of years ago. close your eyes, pitch, hope for the best. i'd suggest building a starter and letting it go for a while (2 weeks to 3 months) and then using your starter to pitch to secondary. but hey, try the starter as primary. just make sure that you slowly build the starter over a series of weeks/months so that you have around 3 litres. you can pitch 2 litres into your primary and keep 1 litre for future use.

[grub]

then there's the issue of which bug(s) are in 3F. odds are that there's a wild sacc in there. but if the 3F you're drinking is a blend of 1,2 and 3 year old lambic, one can assume that the sacc is incredibly weakened that adding to a starter or pitching as secondary will do little to rouse the sacc.

yeah, that's what i was getting at. the dregs from the bottle are likely already a blend and will behave as a blend, whereas the examples I gave for myself were pure brett cultures - brett b trois being the rumored brett species used at 3F. Using this pure culture on its own is likely quite different from using the dregs. so:

dregs probably = blend, and will be funky
pure culture as 100% will be less funky
pure culture as blend/secondary will be funky (more like the dregs)

that's what i was trying to get at - that you CAN use pure cultures 100%, but you'll get very different results from a blend. in this case, it's likely irrelevant.