Ferment wine&beer in same primary?

Hey all,

My LHBS guy tells me that I should not reuse my primary to ferment wine in. Says that the risk of infection is high. Does anyone have wine-only and beer-only fermenters?

Thanks!!!

Cugel said:

Hey all,

My LHBS guy tells me that I should not reuse my primary to ferment wine in. Says that the risk of infection is high. Does anyone have wine-only and beer-only fermenters?

Thanks!!!

Click to expand...

No additional risk of infection as long as you clean and sanitize well.
However if you are using a plastic bucket for a fermenter then the beer or wine will leave a residual smell in the plastic that seems to be impossible to remove. If you make a delicate white wine after a strong hoppy or roasty beer you will likely notice the flavor. Same if you make a pale clean lager or blonde after a red wine or something with strong flavors.

If however you are like me and tend to stick with big flavorful beers and wines then it is unlikely you will notice anything between batches.
Still to play it safe get dedicated buckets or use carboys/better bottles which will not absorb flavors.

Craig

I use them interchangeably- but I have no odor or strains in my ale pails. I wash them pretty well, and sanitize thoroughly, no matter what I'm making.

Thanks CBB and Yooper! While my buckets have an odor after fermenting and cleaning afterwards, it is mild and pleasant. No stains are visible. I'll see if steeping in sanitizer for a few days can remove the smell.

I make big red wines - all we drink - and mostly big belgians, RIS, old ales etc with the occasional wimpy hefe, bitter or mild thrown in.

Thanks again.

Are the buckets dishwasher safe?

Wash them thoroughly and you shouldn't have a problems interchanging.

I soak in oxiclean for a while then rinse the heck out of them and sanitize.

I wouldn't put anything in the dishwasher that you are putting a lid on to make airtight. There's a good chance the heat might warp it a little.

I had a batch of graff in primary for about 2 weeks and I kept noticing that it smelled very floral every time I'd take a gravity sample. It had a taste of what I'd compare to chewing on a dryer sheet. Long story short, my wife decided to use one of my primary buckets to mix up a "Gain" scented cleaner to clean our shower. I always scrub my equipment, soak it in bleach, rinse the crap out of it and then sanitize with StarSan. There was just enough residual scent left in the bucket to ruin an entire batch of Graff.

So the lesson to learn from this is to keep all your buckets in a safe spot and make sure you're only using them as fermenters and not cleaning detergent buckets.