5 or 6 gallon secondary for sours

[user 141939]

I'm planning on brewing my first sour and am trying to decide what size better bottle to use for secondary. I'm leaning towards a 6 gallon to allow a little more surface area and a little more head space for any fruit I might be adding. In the case of the first sour it will be the 2 pounds of currants. Does this seem reasonable?

 

[MileHighBrewer]

2lbs per gallon? Or just 2lbs? Must fruit sours, we talk in lbs per gallon. It takes more fruit then most think. And that is a loooong ways down the line. When the beer tastes right, THEN you add it. Might be 8 months, might be 2 years.

In your scenario, you are thinking exactly opposite of what you want...surface area and headspace. You want to minimize that as much as possible. That beers going to sit in secondary on its own, longer then it will sit on fruit. Headspace can be your enemy, it provides too much opportunity for oxygen to start turning your awesome ale into non-awesome vinegar.

Go with the smaller carboy. You can transfer the beer again onto fruit later. And 2lbs won't really take up much space anyways. Now 4-5 lbs, which is where I'd be with currants personally....maybe 6 gal.

 

[user 141939]

Well I am doing the More Beer RR Consecration Kit which uses two pounds of dried currents. I think that's pretty close to what RR uses themselves.

And the currents are added immediately to the secondary so there isn't any long term aging without them. I thought with sours/wilds you usually added the fruit early on and the wild critters fed on that?

I guess my thought process behind having a little more surface area was that commercially these are done in barrels which allow some oxygen through. Because of this I've read a few people mention that they do these in buckets to more closely mimic a barrel. Except this seems like it would be more oxygen than what would happen in a larger barrel, so I thought a better bottle with a little head space would be a compromise...

At any rate I will take your suggestion into consideration.

 

[youreanimpulse]

Go ahead and follow the recipe, but +1 on the 5 gal carboy. Minimize oxygen. You don't want much acetic character if any and everything else is better off without it.

 

[Dirty25]

Use the 5 gallon for that brew. The currents take up barely any room. American sours add fruit early for brett food and subtle fruit character. Belgium Lambics are different, fruit at the end for intense flavor and to carbonate the beer

 

[mjdonnelly68]

Agree generally with all of the other's advice - you definitely want to limit the exposure to O2 in secondary.

As far as the size of the carboy, it's better to look at it this way: you want your fill in secondary to be as close to the neck of the vessel as possible (limiting the surface area and exposure to O2). If you can do that in a larger vessel for secondary - great! More sour for you.

Good luck.

 

[user 141939]

So looks like the consensus is 5 gallon so 5 gallon it is!

Thanks everyone for your input.