Sour beer (vinegar taste)

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maclaren

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I just cracked open a bottle of a beer I recently brewed and is has a very sour, almost vinegar like taste to it. Any ideas?
 
maclaren said:
I just cracked open a bottle of a beer I recently brewed and is has a very sour, almost vinegar like taste to it. Any ideas?

It's infected. You made beer vinegar. Sadly nothing you can do to fix it. I would review where in your processes you might have got it and replace everything plastic used from that step forward. Give everything else a nice scrub and boil if possible otherwise sanitize.
 
I would bleach everything, then rinse really well, then then wash it again with oxyclean or pbw, then sanitize.
 
So should I look into buying a glass carboy rather than using a plastic fermenting bucket?
 
Instead of glass, look into better bottles. And don't bleach your stuff it doesn't work as well as people think. Go to the brewing network and look up Brewstrong's episodes on sanitation and cleaning. You'll get a good idea of how to clean you stuff.
 
The infection may be limited to a bad bottle. Open another. If it too smells like vinegar and tastes sour odds are the infection is widespread in the batch.
 
I've never had an acetobacter infection, but from what I understand, it doesn't like an anaerobic environment, but if you accidentally oxidized (when racking or something like that) the added oxygen can make it take off like a rocket.
 
Instead of glass, look into better bottles. And don't bleach your stuff it doesn't work as well as people think. Go to the brewing network and look up Brewstrong's episodes on sanitation and cleaning. You'll get a good idea of how to clean you stuff.

I just re-used bottles from microbreweries, but I made sure to clean them in Iodophor solution before bottling. Looking back I noticed a few other mistakes that I will be sure to avoid on my next batch.
 
maclaren said:
I just re-used bottles from microbreweries, but I made sure to clean them in Iodophor solution before bottling. Looking back I noticed a few other mistakes that I will be sure to avoid on my next batch.

The key is are all the bottles infected or just some?
 
oakbarn said:
Idorphor is not a cleaner. PBW or Oxiclean is a cleaner. If the bottles were dirty, Idophor will not get rid of any organic debris.

That makes sense. I filled a tub up with water and put a cup or so of Iodophor in there. Which is where I let my fermenting bucket sit.
 
Bobby_M said:
I'm taking a guess that acetobacter was picked up in the bottling bucket. Do you use that bucket for anything other than bottling operations?

In the past I've used it to sanitize my thermometers, siphon and tubes.
 
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