Brewing a sour: Plastic or Glass?

[Quyzi]

I plan on brewing a lambic soon. Will I be able to kill all the bugs in a better bottle after it's finished and bottled, or would it be smarter to use my glass carboy instead? I'd rather not have future batches infected. I always sanitize my fermenter and tools with starsan before they get near the wort. Is the BB porous enough to allow the bacteria to settle in?

 

[DrunkleJon]

If you have a glass carboy, go ahead and use that. Less chance of cross contamination and better at blocking oxygen transferral during longer souring time.

Otherwise it really doesnt matter. I have had an infection in a bucket fermenter and with a thorough cleaning/sanitizing i reused it with no infection on the following batches.

 

[Xpertskir]

As long as it's not a bucket you are good. The oxygen transfer rate is only marginally different between glass and plastic, and both are way less than a barrel. Either way don't open it often to sample, take pellicle pics, or whatever..

You are better off dedicating a sour fermenter, but either can come clean with appropriate cleaning/sanitizing. I would definitely dedicate a sour bottling bucket, bottling wand, thief, tubing, and autosiphon.

 

[passedpawn]

I used both. After holding sour beers for 2 years, the better bottle went on to make dozens of batches of wheat beers, pale ales, etc. Never had a problem.

If it was me, I'd use the glass for the sour. I don't like handling glass, so using it for the sour lets me use the BBs for the more frequent other beers. Glass is slightly less permeable to oxygen, so for that reason its also the better choice.

 

[Quyzi]

As long as it's not a bucket you are good. The oxygen transfer rate is only marginally different between glass and plastic, and both are way less than a barrel. Either way don't open it often to sample, take pellicle pics, or whatever..

You are better off dedicating a sour fermenter, but either can come clean with appropriate cleaning/sanitizing. I would definitely dedicate a sour bottling bucket, bottling wand, thief, tubing, and autosiphon.

Crap, I hadn't considered the tubing for my siphon and bottling wand. Thank you for mentioning that

I'll likely just use my glass carboy. Thanks guys