Beer Forum

My buddy and I are going to be making a few sours here shortly and need some buckets to store them in while they get their funk. Are their any issues with using a home depot type bucket for this? I can't bring myself to spend the $16+ on food grade buckets from a LHBS.

I've never made a sour beer so this is all from my research, but...

The oxygen permeability of the fermentation vessel dictates the amount of sourness. I asked JZ about it and he had this to say, specifically regarding brewing a Flanders Red:

jamilz wrote:I prefer a glass or BB carboy for flanders. Use a carboy cap on them and plenty of O2 will leak in. It will take some time to sour up, but it will have just a touch of acetic and more lactic that way. Too many homebrew examples reek of vinegar, so you only want a small amount.

So from what he says, I gather HD bucket as well brew buckets let in too much oxygen. Can you go with a carboy?

I would personally stay away from buckets unless you want a strong vinegar character like previously mentioned. You can primary ferment in your bucket and then rack over to a carboy or BB and pitch your bugs. You can easily sanitize a glass carboy and use for clean beers after the sour. My vote would be for the carboy or better yet a wood barrel.

Here is Jamil's show on brewing a Flanders Red. It would probably prove very helpful to listen to to understand the/his process.

cool, that answers my questions. Sours are the only corner of the brewing styles world that I haven't ventured in to yet. Between the two of us, we have about 10 carboys... But he has a half barrel system, and we're going to be making a few batches of sours and blending them. Not wanting to monopolize our carboys for the next 6+ months, we were looking for cheaper alternatives to buying more carboys.

Good sours take a long time. Like a minimum of 1 year at least to reach their peak, sometimes more. I currently have 40 gallons of various sour brews going right now with the majority of them slowly approaching the 1 yr. mark. I have not even tasted them yet, and don't plan on it, until they are 1 yr. of age. Some of the batches are with Roselare yeast and from what I have been reading/hearing is that most people complain that their beer is not sour enough even after 1 yr. That is why I plan to let them sit longer than average to get them where they should be before packaging (prob around 18 mos or so --- I really like noticeably sour beers).
Most of them I brewed in a bucket for primary and racked to secondary after about 7 days, just as the initial fermentation started to slow a bit, into a carboy along with oak/cap/airlock. Then the waiting game begins. All have a healthy pellicle on them even though the racking pushed out extra oxgyen in the carboy. So JZ is right about using an airlock and cap allowing enough oxygen to permeate in for the slow, long secondary fermentation the mixture of bugs needs.

If you want a quick sour brew a berliner weisse. I can usually get to peak sourness in 3 months. All of the others seem to take their time like brewhard mentioned, usually a year or more.

I would be worried about what a non-food-grade bucket would be contributing. Anyone know what the difference is?