Do I actually need separate equipment for Sours?

[banik]

It's a simple question. From what I've read- I don't think that it's necessary, as long as I sanitize properly. That said, I talked to Mark and Tess at my LHBS, Maltose Express, and they seemed to think otherwise.

So- what's the internet think?

 

[ryane]

It's a simple question. From what I've read- I don't think that it's necessary, as long as I sanitize properly. That said, I talked to Mark and Tess at my LHBS, Maltose Express, and they seemed to think otherwise.

So- what's the internet think?

I never use separate equipment, I even use the same racking cane and tubing. ive yet to have a single infection. I just sanitize thoroughly and its fine

Some people worry a bit about the tubing so they have separate for that, its cheap so its easy to do, me, Im kinda lazy and forgetful of which was for which

I say dont worry, just be relatively clean about what you do (nasty bacteria are covering everything you touch otherwise, how is it your "clean" beers arent infected?)

 

[banik]

Makes sense to me- thanks for the response.

 

[teucer]

Saccharomyces has a tendency to kill off other organisms that aren't well-established. You can make mistakes with your sanitation, but if you get it mostly right, you'll usually have a clean beer.

Sour organisms are the exception. If a bit of lacto gets in your beer, your beer will go sour. So your sanitation has to be damn near perfect if you reuse equipment. I for one am only almost there - close enough that in five years of making beer the only batch I lost was the time I accidentally fermented something in my sour mash bucket. (Before I made beer I lost a mead or two as well, but I've learned since then. And part of what I've learned is to label the sour bucket more prominently, just in case I once again don't quite kill all the lacto.)

But if you're better at keeping it sterile than I am, there's no earthly reason why equipment isn't reusable.

 

[spearko520]

i have separate buckets and hoses, bottle filler, racking cane- that's it. i wouldn't say i'm crazy worried about it, or that i sanitize any less or more because of it (on either sour or clean) - it just kind of makes it easier to manage two pipelines with different timeline demands and my sour stuff is like older equipment that i wanted to replace anyway...

 

[jtakacs]

i do - everything different is marked with an "s". i figure why not just take one more element of surprise out.

 

[MattCinatl]

Sour organisms are the exception. If a bit of lacto gets in your beer, your beer will go sour.

I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, especially in beers with any significant amount of hops (>10 IBUs or so).

 

[nberk]

The other thing to think about and that I don't hear many people talk about is what are you doing with your beers after they are finished fermenting? If you are kegging, chilling and drinking quickly afterward your risks of developing off flavors from an underlying infectious organism are much lower than if you are bottling and storing the beer at room or cellar temperatures for an extended amount of time.

So you should to take into account what you are doing with your beers when thinking about your sanitization needs and risks of infection.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I used the same equipment for a long time. I never noticed any bottle infections. I have separate equipment now simply because I wanted to replace some of the soft plastics and decided to dedicate the old equipment to sour/funky beers.

 

[teucer]

I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, especially in beers with any significant amount of hops (>10 IBUs or so).

I don't know how much lactobacillus it takes in terms of cell count, but I've had beer with >20 IBU go sour once because of a contamination involving what I'm pretty sure was a fairly small quantity.

Obviously it's not something where you have to be so sensitive to these things that the whole room is tainted with airborne sells from having sour mashed in it once. But if you're not perfect about your sanitation (I suspect my mistake was not taking apart the spigot on the fermenter to clean each component separately) you can definitely propagate enough from one batch to another to spoil a non-sour style.

 

[spearko520]

I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, especially in beers with any significant amount of hops (>10 IBUs or so).

yeah - plus if it were that easy- a lot of people are wasting a lot of time and energy...

 

[ArcaneXor]

I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, especially in beers with any significant amount of hops (>10 IBUs or so).

Keep in mind that there are lacto strains that are hop-tolerant. Just because White Labs' version commits suicide if it senses a hop pellet across the room doesn't mean they all do. L. brevis, for instance, is very hop-resistant and potent.

 

[MattCinatl]

You're absolutely correct. I should have included that caveat.

 

[teucer]

Keep in mind that there are lacto strains that are hop-tolerant. Just because White Labs' version commits suicide if it senses a hop pellet across the room doesn't mean they all do. L. brevis, for instance, is very hop-resistant and potent.

I favor Y5 yogurt culture for my sours, mostly because it's cheap and they're not territory I've explored in enough detail to have another preference. (Nor is it likely I will - I detest the horsey brett flavor, so my sours are confined to sour mash and Sacch.)