Help ID my problem (1st BIAB AG)

I'll try to give as much detail as possible: I did my first AG 4 weeks ago and just bottled yesterday. I used the BIAB method. I used 10# Maris Otter, and 4 oz cascade (1 oz @ 60, 15, 5, dry hop). After the first week of fermenting, the beer/wort tasted great when i took a sample for a hydro reading. The next week it tasted sour and dry. Ive never tasted M.O. so not sure how "off" this flavor is. After the third week, I dry hopped and yesterday I bottled, and it still had the sour dry taste. I realize the dryness probably came from my mash temp, which i tried to keep steady at around 155, but it fluctuated a bit. Every 10-15 min I had to turn the burner on for 60 sec or so to raise the temp. Im not sure about the sourness though. I did notice a lot of trub in the fermenter (1 gal) after I racked to my bottling bucket. I did not strain the wort from pot to fermenter, I just put everything in to ferment. I've read that BIAB will have a lot of trub. Would the extra material in the boil lead to tannin extraction? I sanitized pretty well so I dont think an infection is the issue. Oh, the yeast was US-05 and the ferment temp was 68-70F. OG: 1.048 FG: 1.008

Tannins are generally bitter, sourness would most likely come from infection. Tannins would come from the husks that are in the bag. Carrying trub to the fementer is no big deal.

Did you hydrate the yeast and get off to a good start???

Yeah, the fermentation seemed to start relatively quickly and seemed healthy. I didnt think the trub was a big deal but figured I would include the details anyways. Would there be any signs of infection besides just the taste? One other detail I should note is that the wort/beer color seems darker than what Beersmith tells me it should be. They said it should be yellow/golden and the color is more of a deeper orange, almost like a DIPA (like a DFH 90 min for example).

Aroma and flavor are the two primary indicators of infection, for me any way. If you bottled the brew, there may be a ring around the bottle at the neck where the liquid level is. Check for that.

Are you sure it's sour (sides of the tongue) and not bitter (back of the tongue)?

If this hasn't been in the bottle long, whatever flavor is there may decrease or age out over time. You'd be surprised how many times I've seen this happen.

Yeah, I am hoping it just needs a little time. The part that bothers me is that it tasted fine after a week, but then tasted bad after another week(of fermenting). One positive note, though, is that the "twang" I was getting from extract kits was not noticeable. Ive read some people's comments that say if you use only Maris Otter, you're not gonna get as much taste as if you threw in, say, a .5 lb of crystal malt, so i wonder what M.O. is supposed to taste like to begin with. I doubt that explains the sourness I am getting, but it may not be as "extreme" as it seems

Another thing I should note is that I didnt pitch the yeast for a few hours due to not having a proper chiller. Obviously this increases the chance of infection. I suppose since it's bottled already I'll just give it a few weeks before I really get worried

mychalg9 said:

Another thing I should note is that I didnt pitch the yeast for a few hours due to not having a proper chiller. Obviously this increases the chance of infection. I suppose since it's bottled already I'll just give it a few weeks before I really get worried

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Well we now have a suspect. Please let us know how you cool down your wort, if it's covered or not, and how long it takes to cool down. The longer the wort is not pitched the greater the chance of bad things/infection. All kinds of not good things happen if the wort cools slowly, from the formation of undesirable compounds (like dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO, "cooked corn" aroma and flavor) to the increased chance of infection.

Do yourself a big favor and build or get a wort chiller. I use an immersion chiller. Easy to clean and use. I've been home brewing for over 20 years and the biggest improvement I've ever made was making a chiller. I place the chiller into my brewpot, put the lid back on and cover the sides of the pot with tin foil to minimize the chance that any bugs get in there. My wort is cool and ready to pitch within 30 minutes.

You can even build your own and save a few bucks, I got all the parts for mine at Sears hardware. Basically all you need is 25 to 30 feet of 3/8 copper tubing, male and female hose fittings, and the adapters to put them all together. There's plenty of examples on the web.

http://www.notsoprobeer.com/2010/11/make-your-own-wort-chiller.html

mychalg9 said:

Another thing I should note is that I didnt pitch the yeast for a few hours due to not having a proper chiller. Obviously this increases the chance of infection. I suppose since it's bottled already I'll just give it a few weeks before I really get worried

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I certainly wouldn't get really worried over a delayed pitch of a few hours.

It took probably 2-2.5 hours to chill to pitching temp. I've been meaning to get a chiller, but havent had the money to do it. I'll get one before I brew my next batch and see if any improvement is made