My first sour is in the primary

I brewed a Flanders style red ale 3 weeks ago, my first attempt at a buggy beer. It's in the primary (Better Bottle) now. I've read posts about using oak dowels and thought I would try this. My question is, what would be the best way for me to proceed at this point?
Add an oak dowel through the stopper and keep it in the Better Bottle?
Rack to glass carboy and use an oak dowel?
Rack to a corny keg as secondary (possibly use oak chips?)

I plan on letting this sit for a long time.

Thanks for any input.

I would do glass. After a couple months mine started bubbling again and is still going 5 months later. You could do corny and just vent it every now and then, but you wouldn't be able to see how gross it looks, and I think a better bottle would let too much oxygen in over the long term and depending on your bug blend could lead to too much acetic acid.

JoMarky said:

I would do glass. After a couple months mine started bubbling again and is still going 5 months later. You could do corny and just vent it every now and then, but you wouldn't be able to see how gross it looks, and I think a better bottle would let too much oxygen in over the long term and depending on your bug blend could lead to too much acetic acid.

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you can do them in better bottles but your going to get better results from glass.

You could do a corny, just never use that corny for anything but sours untill you replace all the rubber bits.

I disagree, a better bottle for the duration of fermenation should work well, I dont do it, but two sour brewers that I know almost exclusively use BB for their beers, well at least the ones that havent made it into a barrel.....

ryane said:

I disagree, a better bottle for the duration of fermenation should work well, I dont do it, but two sour brewers that I know almost exclusively use BB for their beers, well at least the ones that havent made it into a barrel.....

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This was the chart I was thinking of, which doesn't have the numbers for a better bottle. Their website claims they are nearly impermeable, so I guess they are closer to glass than they are to a bucket.


Tank Volume [L] O2 cc/L.year
Burgundy barrel 300 8.5
Rodenbach tank, wood, small 12,000 0.86
Rodenbach tank, wood, large 20,000 0.53
HDPE bucket 20 220
Homebrew barrel 40 23
Glass carboy, 30cm vinyl immersion tube 20 0.31
Glass carboy, silicone stopper 20 17
Glass carboy, wood stopper 20 0.10

The better bottles are much better than buckets, they have a much lower rate of o2 exchange. But they still exchange some gas. I imagine you could do the oak peg with a universal bung with the better bottle too.

Plastic being plastic, dont forget to label the bottle as for only sours.
Nothing like a double ipa turned sour.

Thanks for the tips. I love this place.
Really, I should designate this Better Bottle only for sours? I haven't used a brush to clean it or otherwise mar the interior?

ryane helped me get my lambic project going this year. Check out his blog. Lots of good sour beer info.