For those of you that brew w/ bugs do you have dedicated equipment? I'd like to start to dabble, but I dont want to have to buy a dedicated keg, siphon , bucket, carboy, etc , etc. Would it be a mistake to use what I have now and just be cautious about me cleaning & santization?
I don't have dedicated systems... I did a brett saison two batches ago, then I did a big ass brown with no problems. I now have a wheat beer fermenting with a kolsch yeast and it sure smells just like my saison did when it was fermenting. Not sure how an infection can skip a batch, but we'll see.
general practice is to get dedicated equipment for anything porous, basically anything plastic, as you can't effectively sanitize them once the bugs get in there (according to Wild Brews). about half the beers i do are sour/wild and don't have separate better bottles, but it is a special plastic and i'm paranoid about cleaning and sanitizing. i use the same kegs with no problem too.
Kegs shouldn't be an issue unless you're going to keep your beer in the keg for a long time. I have dedicated hoses and racking equipment. I figured it was cheaper to guy that then to ruin a whole batch. I use all of my carboys interchangeably, most are glass so I'm not too worried but two are plastic. Those I basically only use for "wild" beers. I will occasionally use them for 'clean' beers but that is only if I'm not concerned of any sort of brett character. I also have separate air locks and grommets for wild beers and clean beers. If its something you're really interested in getting into then I recommend buying the separate equipment because it will be worth it in the long run. The reason it is hard to sanitize plastic equipment is because its porous. Brettanomyces cells are 3 times smaller then Saccharomyces cells and don't need as high of a cell count to affect a beer and bacteria cells are even smaller.
You probably didn't notice it in the brown because it was big enough to cover any signs of brett. Whereas the kolsch was more delicate. That being said one of the best beers I've ever had was from a homebrewer that made a brett-kolsch.
I don't do separate fermenters, I have 4-5 gallon better bottles, 4-6 gallon better bottles, 1-6 gallon glass carboy, and 1-6.5 gallon plastic conical, the conical is the only one that is dedicated sour since it is HDPE and porous, plus I bought it used and it infected 8 batches before I even noticed. I do a hot water and oxiclean soak overnight and hot water rinse after emptying, then hit with StarSan before filling with fresh wort. I have begun doing a deep clean every so often like double oxiclean soaks and filling with Iodophor before putting it away, then StarSan on brewday just to be safe. Bottling bucket, bottling wand, tubing, autosiphon, all separated. I do not keg my sours as I want to keep them to age and drink as I desire; I don't have a big enough fridge (or enough kegs) to keep them on, and the cold temps would drastically slow the evolution of the beer. I can cool a few bottles in the fridge quicker than a keg that I leave at room temp until I'm ready to drink.
hot water and oxyclean or PBW right after racking and before using (for at least 45 min). then starsan before using. some recommend switching b/w starsan and iodophor to keep the bugs on their toes and it seems like a good idea, but i just use the starsan. its definitely worth it to get the separate equipment though. definitely.
many years ago before I knew better I made vinegar from crappy beer and cider IN THE KEGS. After the vinegars were bottled I cleaned the kegs as I would after any other batch and returned them to general service. After countless batches of beer served from those 2 kegs I've never had an infected batch of beer in 21 years of brewing. I don't recommend making vinegar in kegs but I've always used the same equipment for all my beers and never worried about it.
Since I recently switched to kegging and will be bottling all my clean beers out of the keg, I'm just going to use my existing bottling equipment for sours (probaly with dedicated auto siphon and tubing). I'll also be using separate carboys for sours, and were I not kegging I'd probably have two sets of bottling equipment. I'm sure I'd be fine with one, but I'd want the peace of mind.
Yep, everything. I'm about to pitch a load of brett B. into a plastic fermenter for a brett saison. Will it work for you? I have no idea, maybe my sanitizing process works better than normal. YMMV
