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HMM....................... I am going have to give this a try. Have a bucket or two that are ready to be tossed, a year old. Think we need a Thread entitled "How To Brew A Sour". To lead us Souroobies in the Quest.

haerbob3 wrote:HMM....................... I am going have to give this a try. Have a bucket or two that are ready to be tossed, a year old. Think we need a Thread entitled "How To Brew A Sour". To lead us Souroobies in the Quest.

I thought of getting a food grade bucket for a sour. I'm guessing only using glass bottles not PET also.

haerbob3 wrote:HMM....................... I am going have to give this a try. Have a bucket or two that are ready to be tossed, a year old. Think we need a Thread entitled "How To Brew A Sour". To lead us Souroobies in the Quest.

HDPE Buckets are not suitable for sours due to their high oxygen permeability. You will end up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. The only plastic recommended for fermenting sours is PET.

russki wrote:

haerbob3 wrote:HMM....................... I am going have to give this a try. Have a bucket or two that are ready to be tossed, a year old. Think we need a Thread entitled "How To Brew A Sour". To lead us Souroobies in the Quest.

HDPE Buckets are not suitable for sours due to their high oxygen permeability. You will end up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. The only plastic recommended for fermenting sours is PET.

P.S. Oh, and you brew a sour the same exact way you brew a regular beer It's how you ferment it....

was going to use the bucket for primary. I do a 6 gallons into primary then transfer to either a 5 gallon glass or 6 gallon pet for secondary. I should have stated this in my earlier post. I have replaced 2 old plastic fermeters with new. I replace my buckets yearly to cut down infection risks.

russki wrote:

BeerRust wrote: Also I read that sours 1) ferment at higher temps

Nope. 68-70F is where you want to be.

This is good advice. If you want the sour to really do it's thing you want real ale temps. Sour bugs generally do not like it so much in the lower 60s and especially much below 60, IE lager temps. That's why lagers were still considered "cleaner" beer and preferred by the weak kneed over ales back in the days when pretty much every beer was infected unless you were really lucky - it was not just because lager yeasts are less estery/phenolic then most ale yeasts. The cold temps simply let the yeast rule the nest. And contrary to what most modern brewers think, "back in the day" wasn't that long ago. We are talking about the late 1800s.

It think it's funny that we want advice on how to brew sours these days. Our ancestors brewed them all the time.

russki wrote: HDPE Buckets are not suitable for sours due to their high oxygen permeability. You will end up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. The only plastic recommended for fermenting sours is PET.

I'm not going to say you should not use a PET or Glass bottle over and HDPE bucket. That's good advice for long aging.

But I would argue that you will not end up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar unless you got acetobacter in the mix, which you *will not* if you are using one of the sour blends, because only a fool would put acetobacter in one of those.

Lacto and Pedio and Brett have an inherent "sour limit", as in once the wort gets to a certain PH they don't like it anymore and stop working.

It's acetobacter that doesn't have such a limit. It's what makes vinegar. It eats every bit of alcohol and turns it into vinegar... the others do not do this, it's a different process producing different souring compounds for those.

Sours do need a little bit of oxygen. Many folks who brew sours in a Glass carboy will not use an airlock, instead they will shove a tapered wooden dowel into the hole (like an unfinished table leg). This plugs it up and limits oxygen but allows a limited amount to permeate over time. The sour bugs have natural defenses against oxygen, that's what the pellicle is. For some styles that need to get a more sherry like flavor with age, the little bit of oxygen is necessary to really bring that out. Those would have traditionally been aged in a wooden barrel, which like the wooden dowel does allow a limited amount of oxygen to get in.

russki wrote:

russki wrote:

haerbob3 wrote:HMM....................... I am going have to give this a try. Have a bucket or two that are ready to be tossed, a year old. Think we need a Thread entitled "How To Brew A Sour". To lead us Souroobies in the Quest.

HDPE Buckets are not suitable for sours due to their high oxygen permeability. You will end up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. The only plastic recommended for fermenting sours is PET.

P.S. Oh, and you brew a sour the same exact way you brew a regular beer It's how you ferment it....

Yea, I almost called it "Don't have a clue what I'm doing sour" But hey, I'm having fun learning. It seems to be like normal brewing, the more you read, the more confused you can become. So like always, I started somewhere and I'm keeping good notes. I'm glad I was snowed in yesterday, because I would have missed the changes it went through in such a short time. Can't wait to perv when I get home tonight.

I've got it at 71 right now were I'll keep it for a few weeks. Then it's off to the spare bedroom where it will be between 68 to 75 depending on the time of the year, buy with no fast temperature swings. I don't own a basement.

P.S. Oh, and you brew a sour the same exact way you brew a regular beer It's how you ferment it....[/quote]
Yea, I almost called it "Don't have a clue what I'm doing sour" But hey, I'm having fun learning. It seems to be like normal brewing, the more you read, the more confused you can become. So like always, I started somewhere and I'm keeping good notes. I'm glad I was snowed in yesterday, because I would have missed the changes it went through in such a short time. Can't wait to perv when I get home tonight.[/quote]
Maybe I ll just go to Home Depot and get one of those orange buckets and just throw everything in there with a lid and hope for the worst (sour)....,

Get a bucket from Lowes, there food grade.

reuse your old equipment Remember anything plastic that you use for the sours cannot be used for your regular beers.

Time to raise the thread from the dead, but with sours it's a waiting game. The beer from the first page is, meh so far, it's taking it's own sweet time. I'll just let it be until I think it's right. But the next beer I brewed and used East Coast Yeast ECY20 Bug County is fantastic. I brewed it in the first week of Febuary. Just bottled 18 beers and racked the rest onto raspberries, for another 2 months of aging. My wife wanted to practice her photo skills and ask if she could "borrow" my beer. You talk about being worried over a beer. I stood over her the whole time, but I think she make it look great. I just hope it tastes as good as it looks. BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Death Sour ECY20
Brewer: Naked Cat Brewery
Asst Brewer:
Style: Straight (Unblended) Lambic
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 8.12 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.24 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.13 gal
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 4.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 6.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 76.4 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
6 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 52.2 %
2 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 17.4 %
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.7 %
1 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 4 8.7 %
1 lbs Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 5 8.7 %
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.3 %
2.00 oz Lambic [1.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 6.9 IBUs
4.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 mins) Other 8 -


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 35.83 qt of water at 161.5 F 156.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge: If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
------
Pitch one vile of ECY20 Bug County.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com

OMG, that is awesome. She made that thing POP off the page. The lighting is absolutely perfect and she captured a beautiful thing here.

Looking at it makes me

That is awesomeness personified.