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De Roos et al. (2018) used amplicon sequencing technology (which is better at detected so-called "[[Quality_Assurance#Viable_But_Nonculturable|viable but not culturable]]" cells) to sample of the interior of barrels and foeders used in one lambic brewery that uses high-pressurized hot water and sulfur dioxide to clean them, and found surviving colonies of ''Brettanomyces anomalus'', ''B. bruxellensis'', ''B. custersianus'', ''Pediococcus'', and to a lesser extent ''Acetobacter'' and ''Lactobacillus''. The ''Acetobacter'' might be linked to older barrels that are more porous. ''Pichia'', ''Debaryomyces hansenii'' and ''Candida'' were also found in abundance in some barrels, but not others. They also found high levels of ''Cellulosimicrobium'' and ''Acinetobacter'', which have not been found to be important for lambic fermentation; the authors suspected that these were living in the wood rather than in the beer since they can metabolize cellulose. Although they are probably also not important to the fermentation of lambic, molds were found in the more porous barrels before cleaning, including ''Aspergillus'' and ''Penicillium''. No molds survived the sulfuring process and the diversity of microbes was far higher in barrels than it was for foeders, perhaps because of the higher level of oxygen exposure in barrels compared to foeders, although foeders had a much higher than expected amount of surviving ''Saccharomyces'' and ''Pichia'' <ref>[https://aem.asm.org/content/early/2018/10/15/AEM.02226-18 The interior surfaces of wooden barrels are an additional microbial inoculation source for lambic beer production. J. De Roos, D. Van der Veken, L. De Vuyst. 2018. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02226-18.]</ref>.
Professor Chris Curtin from Oregon State University presented the results of a study by his team where 50 barrels of three different vintages of spontaneously fermented, lambic-inspired beer was sampled three times over a 9 month period. These 50 barrels represented three batches of the same recipe brewed in 2013, 2015, and 2016. With the exception of a small number of barrels, they all contained the same or similar ''Brettanomyces bruxellensis'' yeast. There was no significance between the three different batches. Two of the 2015 barrels had a different species of ''Brettanomyces'' (''claussenii''). Two of the 2016 barrels had more ''Saccharomyces cerevisiae''. This study indicated that barrel to barrel variation as far as yeast goes is fairly small at this brewery. Bacteria populations clustered much closer based on the vintage (but not the barrel). The 2013 batch was dominated by ''Gluconobacter'' and ''Acetobacter'', while the 2015 batch was dominated only by ''Acetobacter'', and the 2016 batch was dominated by ''Lactobacillus''. This indicated that the vintage of the batch plays a major role in determining which bacteria will be the dominant bacteria during maturation, but individual barrels generally do not (although a small number of barrels matured faster than the majority of the barrels and were dominated by bacteria that represented the more mature vintage). Despite the lack of major variation between barrels, Curtin determined that some barrels can introduce microbial variation, perhaps due to insects transferring microbes or differences in the oxygen ingress between different barrels, and the ability of yeast and bacteria to live within the inner surface of the barrels and potentially survive cleaning procedures <ref name="curtain_asbc_2018" /> (~29 minutes in)<ref name="Curtin_2021" />. Landschoot et al. (2015) attempted to recover yeasts and bacteria sampled from the brewery walls, ceilings, and coolship in an industrial brewery in West-Flanders that also produces lambic. They were unable to recover any yeasts or bacteria from these surfaces. The team did recover several species of microbes from the air of the coolship room such as ''Klebsiella oxytoca'', ''Bacillus'', and ''Staphylococcus'', but these microbes were not found in the wort after cooling in the coolship nor in the foeders during the sample times of 1, 2 and 3 weeks. ''S. cerevisiae'', ''S. pastorianus'', ''D. bruxellensis'', ''P. damnosus'', and a diverse range of acetic acid bacteria were the dominate species of microbes found during the fermentation of lambic in this brewery. After boiling, the brewery cooled its wort to 40°C using an industrial heat exchanger before pumping it into the coolship to reside overnight for 24 hours. The foeders in this brewery are cleaned with a pressure washer and are no attempt was made to pasteurize or sanitize the foeders with heat or chemicals. The inside surfaces of the foeders were sampled and these samples were the only samples that contained microbe species that were found during the fermentation of the lambic. The authors concluded that the microbes fermenting lambic at this brewery are introduced into the wort via the wooden inner surfaces of the foeders <ref name="Landschoot_2015"/>.
Various brewer anecdotes from experiments appear to contradict the published scientific literature. James Howat of Black Project Spontaneous Ales reported conducting an experiment that showed a similar fermentation profile between a barrel fermented spontaneous beer and samples taken from the coolship and aged in glass flasks <ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/1977772602250944/?comment_id=1977929225568615&reply_comment_id=1978520655509472&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D James Howat. Milk The Funk thread on the source of ''Brettanomyces'' in lambic. 02/05/2018.]</ref>. The spontaneous beers at Black Project were produced for a few years by placing a kettle on the roof outside of the brewery to collect microbes from the air and then racked directly to barrels, so there was no influence of microbes living within the brewery (Black Project now uses a coolship inside the brewery). This led James to conduct this experiment to see how much the barrels were influencing the microbiome of the beers even after they were steamed to the [[Barrel#Sanitizing|point of possible pasteurization]]. James reported that the sensory characteristics between the barrel aged beers and the flask-aged beers were very similar, other than the obvious differences that the oak would have provided, which led him to believe that air inoculation provides a significant contribution to the microbial load of spontaneously fermented beers. Additionally, Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon (ref needed) and Oud Beersel <ref>[https://soundcloud.com/craftbeerbrew/podcast-episode-21-new-belgiums-wood-cellar-director-blender-lauren-limbach Lauren Limbach. Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine Podcast. Episode 21. 02/16/2018.]</ref> (~42 minutes in) are known to steam clean their barrels which might be enough to [[Barrel#Sanitizing|sanitize them]], although former Cantillon brewer and saison expert Yvan De Beats maintains that Cantillon barrels are not heated enough to be pasteurized <ref>[https://www.crowdcast.io/e/saison-ale-myths-yvan-baets/1 De Beats, Ybsn. Doug pipers Crowdcast. 08/26/2021.]</ref>. Pierre Tilquin reported that different worts brewed and cooled by different lambic brewers present different fermentation and flavor profiles when barrel fermented in his blendery, particularly when he began steam cleaning emptied barrels <ref>[https://beerandbrewing.com/podcast-episode-234-pierre-tilquin-of-gueuzerie-tilquin-makes-lambic-and/ Pierre Tilquin. Interview on Craft Beer & Brewing Podcast. Episode 234. 04/15/2022.]</ref>(~15 and ~27 mins in). Mitch Ermatinger of Speciation Artisan Ales reported moving wort cooled overnight in a coolship to a stainless fermenter, and the wort began showing signs of visual fermentation four days later <ref>[https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/permalink/3012223975472463/?comment_id=3012239425470918&reply_comment_id=3012428892118638 Mitch Ermatinger. Milk The Funk Facebook thread on sources for microbes in spontaneous fermentation. 10/28/2019.]</ref>. Such anecdotes deserve further investigation using the full scientific process.