can anyone give me a basic rundown of their experience brewing a sour(lacto or brett) off of an extract kit? also, i keg, so will it make all my equipment infected for life?
everything plastic yes (that touches the infected wort). Glass no you can use again however, you need to clean the crap out of it.
I'll disagree. I'd trust a 1:10 bleach solution on plastic or glass. Wash one more time than you think is necessary.
I can't give you any information on sanitation because I mostly brew all sour. However I can give you a brief guide to the microorganisms that anyone can understand. Brew as normal, toss in Brett and Lacto and Pedio, or any combination of three. Wait a long time. Tada, sour beer! Haha. Just kidding, partially. Brett can be used in place of normal yeast and will produce a clean, less funky fermentation than if pitched alongside sacchromyces. If pitched together, it will eat all the scraps and fart out a bunch of funky compounds. Oxygen will cause Brett to make trace amounts of acetic acid. Lacto will produce a dedicate tartness and is sensitive to hop IBUs and ABV on differing levels depending on the strain. If Lacto was a goblin, Pedio would be the Orc. Pedio will produce a deeper, more assertive tartness but can be slow to act and may produce a ropy sliminess that you will need Brett to clean up. Also, a pellicle isn't a requirement for sourness to occur, although it is an indication souring organisms are present. A pellicle is thrown up by anaerobic organisms in order to keep out oxygen. As stated, check out The Mad Fermentationist, aka @oldsocks on here I believe. His website is full of tons of info and he just had a book published that is even better.
Slight emendation: not literally any combination of the three, as you should never use pedio without brett.
Depends on the type of sour beer you want. Since you're using extract there is a set level of attenuation for the most part. If you're going to sour for a long time then you should add some maltodextrin as it is unfermentable by Sacc. but Brett can metabolize it. One option is to brew a normal ale and ferment in primary with a strain of Sacc. then rack to a secondary, purge the O2 and add the dregs from your favorite sour and let them do their thing. As far as kegging goes, yes it is a possibility that the Brett and bacteria can take up residence in your keg, however; it would be in the rubber o-rings and plastic tubing, but those are easy to replace or designate as sour equipment. Anything stainless can be easily cleaned. I use my kegs for 100% Brett fermented beers and clean ales as well. I've never had a problem, but I also pretty much only keg things that are meant to be consumed quickly. I did however lager a Helles in a keg and didn't pick up any Brett infection from it. But as suggested, read OldStock's blog. That's probably how anyone on this site learned to brew sour beers.
