Does anyone secondary/sour beers with Brett, Pedio, or Lacto in a corny? If so, how do you set it up so that it gets the little bit of oxygen that it needs to sour correctly?
Usually I just pour the white labs vial of sour mix right into the corny keg. However, I have noticed that when using a starter with either brett, lacto, and /or the white labs sour mix the pellicle forms a lot faster, and it seems to sour up quicker. Although, once that pellicle forms I try my best not to disturb it. Another thing to keep in mind, if using a corny keg I try to keep the psi on that keg at a minimum so that the brett does not have to work under pressure.
what would you think about taking the posts off and covering them with aluminum foil?
Do you have the “wildBREWS” book? Check out page 220. The wooden tuns used by the belgian brewers really aren’t all that permeable. According to their chart, a vinyl tube blow off (theirs was 11 inches long) was the closest match. I’ve noticed that several brewers seem to have had success with silicone stoppers. A blowoff could be attached to your gas post among other options. Relax, Have fun with it and swap a bottle or two with me in a few years.
I secondary brett beers all the time in cornies, but I’ve never done a sour in a corny.
I’ve got my first brett beer secondary in the corny…its been in there for about 2 months…
I personally like to keep things sealed just to be on the safe side. At my house there are a lot of bugs. I would be too sacred that the the bugs would make their way into the corny some how. Not to mention when there are significant temperature fluctuations, air/oxygen might make its way into your beer (I presume way too much air might make it’s way in to the corny, when compared to barrel aging). I think it would be a better idea to release pressure by purging the corny once in a while. I have my 2 year old lambic aging in a sealed 5 gal corny with no problem. But, I do have to mention I have already removed the beer from the fruit.
The one time I tried it, I sealed everything up and just pulled the release valve every so often. I thought it came out really well - it was a black saison to which I added the dregs of two bottles of Orval.
How long did you age it? I had a Tripel finish out high over a year ago and pitched dregs from two bottles of Orval into it in secondary. It’s gone thru some not pleasant phases (plastic/phenolic flavors) and now is starting to taste pretty nice. I added some French Oak for good measure recently and am going to keg soon and see how it goes. I am looking forward to how it develops.
I racked it into the serving keg after 6 months, though it reached terminal gravity after 3. I thought it tasted pretty good at 3 months; I could have probably just kegged it then.