Fermenter For Sours?

[ballzac]

Hi,
I'd like to try my hand at sour beers at some stage, and because they take so long to ferment, I would like to get started sooner rather than later. I was wondering what most of you guys use for a fermenter?

From what I've read, glass or better bottle are better than a standard canoe drum type fermenter because they are less permeable. I think I would prefer to make sours that are more balanced towards lactic than acetic acid, so permeability to oxygen would probably be a problem for me. It seems that the glass and better-bottle carboys only come in 23L sizes or something. Because the beer would take so long to brew, I would probably rather do a larger batch, say 10 gallons or something. I could use a couple of better-bottles, but they are quite expensive. I'm wondering if there are other options?

Thanks

 

[manticle]

I've got 2 x 15 L plastics for primary and 2 x 15 L glass demijohns with silicon bungs for secondary/ageing.

You can get large demijohns from Grain and grape - under $8 for delivery of most things under 20kg. 34 and 54 litre available with or without tap: http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/index.php?cPath=280_282_287

Remember though that a sour is an experiement so doing large batches may mean waiting a year or more for piss tasting foulness. I prefer to do multiple small batches and then I can use different ageing secondary additions (bourbon and vanilla oaked, single malt and sour citrus oaked, smoked etc)

Still waiting patiently to see how they all come out. 3rd one has been in the primary plastic vessel for maybe 4 months. Keen to rack to demijohn and seal properly as soon as I can get another but it seems to be tasting OK. Fortunately to combat my impatience the glass demijohns are tapless so I really have to wait.

 

[ballzac]

Thanks, I don't know how I missed those demijohns when searching their website. You're probably right about smaller batches being better. I can always blend them anyway.

 

[manticle]

Probably because they are in the winemaking section.

Also check: http://shop.ebay.com.au/?_from=R40&_tr...-All-Categories

 

[Swinging Beef]

I make sour beers, (now, intentionally ) and use regular plastic fermenters and plastic cubes.
Mine are brett and lacto sour.
Just be sure to keep stuff seperate.

 

[Stuster]

I've done Flanders reds and brett batches in plastic. I was a bit apprehensive about leaving them so long in plastic but it seemed to work fine. I did get myself a 54L glass carboy and that has 40+L of lambic in it (just looked at my notes and it's nearly been a year now). I just wanted to be relaxed about leaving that in there for as long as it took. It's also nice to see the pellicle and see how it's going (and hopefully see it drop sometime soon <_< ).