The Bar Towel

Thanks for the links!

mintjellie wrote:

Belgian wrote:

mintjellie wrote: It's not spontaneous if it's inoculated.

'Tis. By exposing the beer to allow wild yeast have its way with it, it's wild inoculated..

I tend to think that inoculation implies a purposeful introduction of something specific, rather than passively letting things introduce themselves.

I think the confusing usage here means just placing something deliberately in the presence of wild yeasts they don't control, in contrast to very predictable modern method. It replicates the 'spontaneous' fermentation that we've brewed with for milennia AND intentionally exploited long before we knew about yeasts, breeding good strains etc.

Of course the ancient method wasn't totally spontaneous either except for the times done by mistake you could endlessly argue! It was just as intentional even if they lacked the same science.