TristanLowery
Member
By now, everyone knows that if you plan on brewing with "wild" yeast and bacteria, you'd better have a dedicated set of plastic and vinyl gear (racking canes, siphon tubing, airlocks, funnels, etcetera) separate from your equipment used for beers fermented by Saccharomyces sp. alone. The use of glass and even Better Bottle carboys for both seems to be a more divisive issue, but personally, I've got enough fermentation vessels to keep them apart and do so.
What no one ever seems to talk about, however, is the possible requirement of maintaining separate equipment for bacteria (Lactobacillus sp., Pediococcus damnosus) and for "wild" yeast (Brettanomyces sp.). Of course, a lot of traditional sour beers contain microbiological zoos of both yeast and bacteria, but many do not. If you use the same dedicated "sour" Auto Siphon to rack a multiple-strain Lambic before using it again to transfer an Oud Bruin with only Saccharomyces and Lactobacillus delbrueckii, might you be running the risk of of introducing unintended populations of wild yeast and bacteria into the latter (say, Brett and Pediococcus)?
For the record, I've used the same set of dedicated "sour" equipment on a Flanders sour brown (Wyeast "Ardennes" and "Lambic Blend"), followed by a Berliner Weisse (Wyeast "German Ale", sour mash and house lacto culture), and finally a Saison with Orval dregs. The sour brown developed sourness and "horsey" Brett flavors after four months in secondary, the dregged Saison is picking them up now after two months and the Berliner Weisse has been bottled now for six months without showing any Brett character from cross-contamination.
I realize I probably just answered my own question, but was wondering if any one else has had differing thoughts or experiences on this matter.
What no one ever seems to talk about, however, is the possible requirement of maintaining separate equipment for bacteria (Lactobacillus sp., Pediococcus damnosus) and for "wild" yeast (Brettanomyces sp.). Of course, a lot of traditional sour beers contain microbiological zoos of both yeast and bacteria, but many do not. If you use the same dedicated "sour" Auto Siphon to rack a multiple-strain Lambic before using it again to transfer an Oud Bruin with only Saccharomyces and Lactobacillus delbrueckii, might you be running the risk of of introducing unintended populations of wild yeast and bacteria into the latter (say, Brett and Pediococcus)?
For the record, I've used the same set of dedicated "sour" equipment on a Flanders sour brown (Wyeast "Ardennes" and "Lambic Blend"), followed by a Berliner Weisse (Wyeast "German Ale", sour mash and house lacto culture), and finally a Saison with Orval dregs. The sour brown developed sourness and "horsey" Brett flavors after four months in secondary, the dregged Saison is picking them up now after two months and the Berliner Weisse has been bottled now for six months without showing any Brett character from cross-contamination.
I realize I probably just answered my own question, but was wondering if any one else has had differing thoughts or experiences on this matter.