American Wild Ale - where to start??

[foomench]

In [Vinnie's] own words he says to homebrewers "You'll get similar levels of oxygen uptake in a plastic bucket that you do in a wine barrel" Awesome!

I think the oxygen uptake in a plastic bucket is much higher than a wine barrel. This is based on a chart in Sparrow's book as well as Vinnie's presentation at the NHC in Denver.

That said, I left a kriek in a plastic bucket for six months and it was fine.

[Kazi the Younger]

Right, but you want oxygen uptake in order for the bacteria to work. If there's no oxygen, it just sits there and takes forever (i.e. in a glass carboy or a stainless keg.)

You don't want too much oxygen either. Perhaps plastic bucket is the upper limit of the oxygen you want. Not nearly as romantic sounding as "wine barrel" but reality is it does the job better so far. On the bottles of most RR sours, it says "barrel aged for 9 months". I have a beer I've aged for 6 months in plastic and it's nearly as sour as RR's beers.

How's that sound for a business plan?

Food-Grade Plastic Bucket Aged Sour Ales

- the finest!

[DannyW]

So would wrapping bucket in foil or saran wrap (much less permeable I read somewhere) or maybe even paint lower permeability to barrel levels?

[brewinhard]

I think the one true concern with brewing wild ales in plastic buckets and aging for long term is the production of too much acetic acid from acetobacter in the presence of oxygen (which plastic allows more of). With that being said, one could always blend beers (as the big sour producers do) to achieve the right levels of flavors/aromas. I do remember reading on on-line sour swap from the BBB and tasters were commenting on how a flanders red that was aged in a bucket for 1 yr or so did not show signs of excessive acetic qualities leading one to believe that a good sour could be made using a bucket for long term aging.
If you do decide to go the carboy/stopper route, then one could always remove the stopper/cap every now and then to allow some oxygen to ingress into the headspace to mimic the oxygen permeability of a bucket. This process would also most likely occur when removing samples for tasting along the way as well.

[foomench]

Even those carboy stoppers are permeable. I'll try to dig out Sparrow's data and post it.

You could wrap a bucket in foil or plastic wrap. I don't know how effective that would be. The idea of painting it scares me.

[foomench]

Oxygen Diffusion Through Selected Fermentation Vessels

• Type - O2 cc/L/year
• Rodenbach Wooden Tun (Large) - 0.53
• Rodenbach Wooden Tun (Small) - 0.86
• Wine Barrel - 8.5
• Flextank HDPE Fermenter - 20
• Homebrew Barrel - 23
• Homebrew HDPE Bucket - 220
• Glass Carboy w/ Silicone Stopper - 17
• Glass Carboy w/ Wooden Stopper - 0.10
• Glass Carboy w/ 30 cm Vinyl Immersion Tube - 0.31

From wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow, p. 220; which took it from a table by Raj Apte.

[Kazi the Younger]

How is it then, that Vinnie's sour beers have that intense Acetic quality in nine months (which he claims is precisely the AIM of his souring) and according to your chart a wine barrel only gets 8.5 CC/L and a homebrew HDPE Bucket is @ 220? There wasn't a zero added to that?

From my experience, the Bucket is reaching good souring/acetic levels in 6 months. Vinnie says his beers are aged 9 months. I know he blends, but is he blending then with beer that has been souring for years? How else is he getting the souring to be that intense in 9 months with 8.5 cc/L?

I'm not trying to be the 13th Apostle of the Plastic Bucket, but from my experience it's doing an amazing job getting the kind of lambic/acetic character I love on top of those delectable horse-blanket Brett flavors. If 220 is correct, then maybe the difference between that and 8.5 isn't what matters to the bacteria. Maybe as long as there is some minimum uptake number, that's all they need.

Also, I find it interesting to take samples every month or so and see how the bacteria is working. My Oud Bruin started @ 1.063, WLP-007 took it down to 1.014, then after 6 months in the barrel it's down to 1.007. It's drying out beautifully, but there's still a great maltiness there from the caramunich I added, creating this tasty sweet and sour impression. I really dig it.

Thoughts?

[foomench]

I think you are overestimating the importance or contribution of acetic acid to the sour character of some beers, but that's just my opinion. I like a lot of sours, but I've not tasted many that have strong acetic acid character. They might be strongly sour, but not with the vinegar character of acetic acid. Duchesse de Bourgogne is a notable exception in my memory.

Or you could be correct with your supposition that once you have enough oxygen, more doesn't make a difference.

I was just reviewing Vinnie's presentation at the 2007 NHC. It doesn't come out and say where they get their sourness from, but my interpretation is that they get most of their sourness from lactic acid from Pediococcus, and from Brett. Also, I found this:

At RRBC we keep some “Acid Beer” around- this is highly acidic beer that is used for blending to bring up the acidity in a beer.