Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I am going to make a fruit Lambic....will the plastic buckets I use to make it, need to be dedicated to Lambics/sours from that point onward?

I use plastic almost exclusively for primary fermentation. However, plastic is porous and will carry over flavor and aroma from batch to batch. I have separate primaries for wort with hops (beer) and must without hops (wine and mead). Plastic is also subject to tiny cuts and abrasions, so it is a great home for spoilage organisms. I solve this problem with sanitizing with a sulfite solution. However, you do not want to sanitize with sulfite if you are pitching spoilage organisms on purpose (brett, latco, etc). So I have dedicated a couple of primaries just for sour ales. For me, it is better safe than sorry.

Once you use plastic for bugs, just consider it dedicated to sour beers. That's what everyone says, anyway.


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Yup, best to have clean plastic and sour plastic. Buckets much cheaper than dumping a batch of beer down the drain.