Using plastic carboy for sour wort berliner

I’m planning on running off my mash into a plastic carboy and then throwing in some grain and souring it up for a couple days… will this infect the carboy and make it unusable for clean beers? I’m thinking yes, but want to confirm.

From everything I have read about sours is to keep all the equipment, especially plastics, separate.

I can confirm that plastic doesn't always get infected with sour bugs, but it does happen often enough that you shouldn't try to put a clean beer in there after a sour. I have two plastic buckets, tubing, a bottling bucket, etc, that will never see clean beer again.

You could do a sour mash, then boil and proceed as usual. That basically makes a non-infected berliner weisse. I I wouldn't try it with any other sour, but berliners aren't trying to get that many complexities.

mysteryshrimp said:

You could do a sour mash, then boil and proceed as usual. That basically makes a non-infected berliner weisse. I I wouldn't try it with any other sour, but berliners aren't trying to get that many complexities.

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That's a great suggestion, but I have a keggle as a mash tun so it would be hard to seal it up during the sour mash.

It doesn't need to be air-tight. Saran Wrap the handles, put a flat piece of plastic, wood, metal, or cardboard on the top. If you're at all interested in sour/wild beers, read Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow. There are so many things in Belgian Breweries that would give heart attacks to health inspectors over here.

For my first Berliner, I fermented in a keg that I had no immediate need for. Stainless doesn't get infected as easily, and is much easier to sanitize if it does harbor something.

Joeneugs said:

I’m planning on running off my mash into a plastic carboy and then throwing in some grain and souring it up for a couple days… will this infect the carboy and make it unusable for clean beers? I’m thinking yes, but want to confirm.

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Whether or not you need to use separate equipment for clean and wild beers on the homebrew scale is often debated, you'll have to decide for yourself.

I'd be a lot more concerned that mashing out into a better bottle will probably melt it.