Likelihood Of Wild Yeast Infecting An Airstone?

[Mr. No-Tip]

I am looking at putting down a berlinerweiss in the next few days. I would like it to be super sour, and I am thinking of initially pitching a vial of straight lacto, and then following up with a vial of white labs berlinerweiss blend a few days later. From my reading, this will allow the lacto to take hold before the yeast makes too much alcohol and hopefully produce a more sour end product.

I would like to re-oxygenate before pitching the yeast/lacto blend to give the yeast the best chance to grow. I have a keg/airstone oxygen setup, but I imagine there's a risk of the established lacto getting into the stone. The stone will be going from starsan to wort to sanitiser again all the time blowing out - obviously that reduces the likelihood of anything getting in, but I am not sure if it's foolproof.

Has anyone done this before? Would you do it in my shoes? I suppose I could just have a 'sour' stone and replace it for my normal brews...

 

[manticle]

Not sure how difficult an airstone is to sanitise but I do tend to keep my sour/funk equipment separate - exceptions are silicon tube (clean, throw in a pot and boil for an hour, starsan) and glass demijohns (good clean, dose with sodium perc, rinse, starsan).

 

[itmechanic]

Just boil it, no problems.

 

[Rowy]

For the price just ditch it FFS. Before that satisfy yourself that airating actually does something better than a paddle and a vigorous stir.

 

[///]

For the price just ditch it FFS. Before that satisfy yourself that airating actually does something better than a paddle and a vigorous stir.

Or as you clean usually ... Enough caustic and Peroxitane will kill all ...

 

[Bizier]

I go caustic soak on airstone to get out the malt/yeast gunk (and when you apply pressure to stone, you see it all come out) and then rinse with boiling water for about a half hour then starsan, allowing it to get back into the stone. If lacto or wild yeast survive that, I would be surprised, and I would say that they aren't in prime reproducing form.

 

[Tex083]

Boil it in water for 15-20 mins. Yeast is a single cell organism it will denature and die.
Boiling water for 15 mins removes the dissolved oxygen.

 

[QldKev]

I'm assuming the airstone is worth a lot of money? Why not keep the good airstone for the main beers, and get a cheap plastic type fish tank one just for these one of beers? It may not be as good as the other airstone, but really there is probably stuff all difference in it. Something like this

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

I'm assuming the airstone is worth a lot of money?

Not really, obviously you can buy whatever for sour exclusive work - I've certainly got a whole chunk of it now from this barrel lambic - was just interested in seeing where the limits lie.

Thanks for all the responses. Boiling and caustic seems like a go. Also had oxonia suggested, which really sounds like something I should get in my kit bag...