First Sour Brew - Racking to Secondary

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sherm1016

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My first sour brew has been in the primary fermentor for about a month now, and I was planning on racking it today. Three questions:

1. It looks like the pellicle is starting to form. Any concerns about racking it now? I am assuming it will just reform over time in the secondary.

2. I was going to add 1 oz of medium toast oak cubes. Do I need to sterilize them (vodka perhaps), or should I just drop them in the secondary before I rack.

3. What size carboy should I use for the secondary? I have a 5 gal or a 6.5 gal at my disposal. Does the amount of headspace in the secondary make a difference?

Thanks in advance.
 
Don't rack it to secondary.

You'll get more complexity and a better beer if you just leave it alone. Each successive generation of microorganism will feed on the generations preceding. If you rack it, you'll lose a lot of bug food.

If you want to add oak, you can either soak the cubes in vodka like you mention, or you can pop them in the microwave for a couple minutes with some water. That's what I usually do and it seems to work out.
 
I like racking my sours, I like the "cleaner" (for lack of a better word) flavor for everything but my lambics (which I do leave in primary). It's a personal taste issue, almost all of the sours produced in America and Belgium (besides the lambic family) are transferred off the primary yeast before long term aging.

Agreed on steaming/microwaving the oak, I like to remove some of the those fresh "lumber" flavors before aging my beer on them for months/years.

I'd go with the smallest carboy that can hold the beer. Make sure to keep the airlock topped up, I've tasted numerous homebrewed sours that went to vinegar and/or nail polish remover as a result of a dry airlock.

Good luck!
 
Mm. I definitely prefer the extra funk. :mug:

I'm still working on getting a puckering sour like RR though... I don't know how those guys do it.
 
dwarven_stout said:
I'm still working on getting a puckering sour like RR though... I don't know how those guys do it.
Click to expand...

They actually do a clean primary fermentation, transfer off the sediment, and pitch Brett going into the barrel. After the Brett has some time (weeks-months) to get established they do a large Pedio/Lacto pitch. I think a lot of it is having the right bugs tht can tolerate the alcohol/hops (the commercial cultures are a bit too easy to kill). Barrel aging seems to help as well (although i'm not entirely sure if its the oxygen, or the wood), the barrels we have get as sour or more sour than my carboy fermented beers despite the clean primary fermentation.

Beatification is sour mashed before being spontaneously fermented, talk about a sour result.

I've noticed that racking doesn't reduce the production of sourness, just the complex farmyard/barnyard Brett funk. It still shows up, but racking lets me taste more of the malt/funk/wood etc... rather than having a dominant "rustic" character.
 
Oldsock said:
They actually do a clean primary fermentation, transfer off the sediment, and pitch Brett going into the barrel. After the Brett has some time (weeks-months) to get established they do a large Pedio/Lacto pitch. I think a lot of it is having the right bugs tht can tolerate the alcohol/hops (the commercial cultures are a bit too easy to kill). Barrel aging seems to help as well (although i'm not entirely sure if its the oxygen, or the wood), the barrels we have get as sour or more sour than my carboy fermented beers despite the clean primary fermentation.

Beatification is sour mashed before being spontaneously fermented, talk about a sour result.

I've noticed that racking doesn't reduce the production of sourness, just the complex farmyard/barnyard Brett funk. It still shows up, but racking lets me taste more of the malt/funk/wood etc... rather than having a dominant "rustic" character.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I haven't had a chance to do a barrel sour yet. Club just finished a scotch ale barrel project, so a few of us are trying to get a flanders going in there. Failing that, I have a friend of a friend that can get $20 barrels, so we might just get our own and start it growing.
 

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