American Wild Ale - where to start??

[Kazi the Younger]

Just wanted to report on my findings, since it's been about a year since I started this thread - thanks for everyone's help so far.

A week after I started this thread I brewed an Oud Bruin. The recipe was essentially Jamil's, but with less specialty malts, less bitterness, and an OG of 1.064. I brewed 10 gallons, split into two 5 gallon buckets, one I added WLP-007 Dry Whitbred Ale, and the other I added 007 plus Wyeast's Rosalear Blend (Lacto, Pedio, Bret). I wanted to see the effects of souring bacteria added right off the bat vs souring bacteria added after primary fermentation was complete. Here's what I found:

Souring bacteria takes off much faster when it's not working in the presence of actively fermenting Brewers Yeast.
I did searched from some Youtube videos of Vinnie @ RR talking about his process, and he confirmed my suspicions, as he said they used to add all micro organisms at the same time, but found that it took longer and occasionally got an "autolysized yeast character."

The beer I racked off the brewers yeast into a new bucket where souring bacteria/Brett were added became sour almost twice as fast.

Souring Bacteria is very sensitive to IBU's and higher alcohol beers. It won't work or be very slow if you have even moderate ibu levels (read: over 25-30 ibus in a 1.065 wort.) I kept mine @ 15-17.

I found that souring happens faster in a plastic bucket then in a stainless keg. Once again, I searched for Vinnie's opinion, and discovered that there's a reason he does it in barrels - because they allow Oxygen uptake that slowly reacts with the souring bacteria to produce that acetic character. In his 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!

[Mills]

Another direction to go would be to listen to the Jolly Pumpkin episodes of Can You Brew It and listen to Ron's approach to sour beers. That might be a great starting point to branching out on your own.

Mills

[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.