Beer Forum

I've got the itch to brew a sour and after lots of research I'm I still have one major concern; contamination. I've read that some people never use anything plastic that comes in contact with a buggy beer on their other beers. I've also read that cleaning plastic equipment with bleach or iodine will wash away those worries. I understand that bugs like to hide in scratches in plastic buckets so I will be using a glass carboy as a fermenter. I am very good about keeping my equipment clean and I have no problem scrubbing things down with a bleach solution if that's all it takes to clean up after a sour beer. I just wanted to make sure I won't have to be in the market for a new siphon, funnel, and other what-have-yous that come in contact with some bugs.

Craftbrewhaha wrote:I've got the itch to brew a sour and after lots of research I'm I still have one major concern; contamination. I've read that some people never use anything plastic that comes in contact with a buggy beer on their other beers. I've also read that cleaning plastic equipment with bleach or iodine will wash away those worries. I understand that bugs like to hide in scratches in plastic buckets so I will be using a glass carboy as a fermenter. I am very good about keeping my equipment clean and I have no problem scrubbing things down with a bleach solution if that's all it takes to clean up after a sour beer. I just wanted to make sure I won't have to be in the market for a new siphon, funnel, and other what-have-yous that come in contact with some bugs.

You can definitely clean any stainless or glass that come in contact with the buggy beer. But most, if not all plastics are semi permeable. Keep a separate set of hoses, buckets, etc. for the sour beers.


Mylo

Agreed with Mylo.

You will most definitely want a separate set of any porous plastic equipment you use. Autosiphon, racking cane, tubing, airlock, stopper, wine thief, funnel, buckets, etc.

You will be disappointed if you brew a "regular" beer only to find out that it picked a brett or bacteria infection. Best to be on the safe side. Once a year, I usually hand my normal plastic equipment over to my sour side, and buy new plastic stuff for my normal beers.
I even have separate kegs and tap lines for my sour beers as well.

As Mylo said, glass is okay to use for both, but be sure to give it a good long soak in hot PBW followed by a star san treatment before brewing again.

Bleach/star san will work fine, as mentioned, for non-porous materials like glass and stainless. The concern with porous materials, like plastic and wood, is that the tiny little micro-pores that the bacteria can access, usually aren't reachable with sanitizer. They're too small. Any sanitizing method that relies on contact to work, like star san, will not be able to get into those spots because of stuff like cohesive forces of the liquid. The only way you will be able to effectively sanitize a porous material is with heat. Unfortunately, most plastics don't do well in the heat required to sanitize. I hope this explains the "why" a little bit.