Might Have Screwed Up

I brewed an Irish Red. Followed brewing & sanitation instructions to a T. After 13 days in primary it tasted awesome, like ready to drink awesome, and I racked to secondary to free up primary. When I went to bottle 10 days later the beer tasted much worse than it did out of the primary. It tasted sour and nothing like the deliciousness that came from the primary. Is this common? Could beer taste great and get worse 10 days later?

Now my only thought why or how I could have made a mistake is the glass carboy which came in the mail from Midwest might have not been cleaned or sanitized before the transfer. I find this hard to believe because I have been super anal and Star Saned the S**t out of everything but I do not remember cleaning the new carboy. I would say its 50/50 on whether I did or not. Would this (new never used, or cleaned/sanitized) carboy led to an infection? I didn't see any signs of infection or anything crazy just a noticeable change in taste. Been bottled 4 days now, 2 bottles were clear so i could see whats going on and nothing odd in the bottle just the usual particles settle to bottom.

Please help.

It sounds like it's an infection. Infections often cause sour tastes due to the bacteria lacto bascillus (sp?) producing lactic acid. If you didn't sanitize the carboy you transfered it into then I would say there is about a 99% chance that is where the infection came from (the other 1% would come from whether or not you sneezed it when transfering it). There are tons of bacteria and potential bugs just floating on dust particles in the air so I can only imagine what a carboy thats been collecting dust in a warehouse and then handled by Billy and Buddy down in the shipping department might have on and in it. In the future I wouldn't bother using a secondary at all and I would DEFINITELY make sure to sanitize EVERYTHING. If you can't remember if you sanitized it, just do it again for good measure. 2 extra minutes isn't worth a whole batch of beer.

On the up side, now you can call it a Sour Irish Red and tell people it's supposed to taste like that!

Give it some time. Generally a tartness or sour is not a good sign, but people have been known to have an off day when tasting. If you are lucky you might be ok.

Next time maybe a little less RDWHAHB and a bit more attention to sanitizing?

As anal as I have been I feel like I had to clean/sanitize it but that was a good 72 beers ago and I really have no memory about that day besides thinking what a pain it was racking to a secondary.

I guess what I am asking is does beer ever taste great after fermentation and then get worse closer to bottling? If this batch is ruined I will not be happy...

A lot of times "green" beer will have a green apple taste to it caused by acetalaldehyde. The yeast usually clean this up and it only gets better with time though. Overcarbonation can cause a beer to taste sour or have a carbonic "bite" to it, but you said it tasted sour before you bottled it right? So that's probably not it. The only thing I can think of that will cause a beer to start tasting worse (especially in a sour way) is an infection. If that is the case I would be careful with the bottles. Bacteria can eat certain sugars that yeast can't which might cause the bottles to pressurize more than you expected just from the yeast metabolizing the priming sugar. This could lead to overcarbonation and potentially bottle bombs.

Wait it out and see. Or just bottle it and see if it's better cold and carbed. And whatever you do get that next batch started!

Not sure if I know how to post a picture or not but I tried to upload a picture of my beautiful, delicious, non-infected, "Tyrone McCarthy's Irish Red"

Turns out I must have cleaned/sanitized the carboy or been extremely lucky. Although after 8 days in the bottle I could tell it was a tad green it was still one of the best beers I have ever had. Beer Gods helped on this one...

Eman24dx said:

Not sure if I know how to post a picture or not

Click to expand...

Click on manage attachments, choose a picture file, click upload and then close the window attachments window and continue your post as normal. It should post underneath.

Can't see the picture, but that is awesome! I'm glad it worked out for you! It just goes to show that no matter how hard we try to screw up our beer, it usually turns out pretty great anyway.

Will try to post the picture again

Not too much head yet but I assume this increases with bottle conditioning?

Nice! Glad it turned out, OP.

Yeast know how to make beer, so unless we do something particularly stupid, they usually succeed.

Eman24dx said:

Not too much head yet but I assume this increases with bottle conditioning?

Click to expand...

How long has it been in bottles? Three weeks at 70 degrees F is the baseline for typical beers for proper carbontion. Higher gravities or lower temps make this take longer.

Be sure that you are careful what you use to clean your beer glasses with - dishwasher rinse aid will destroy head retenion, as will most detergent reidues (rinse REALLY well).

Only 9 days now. Couldn't wait. And it was so good not sure how much longer I will wait for the next one.

They are stored in a dark area at a steady 68-69 degrees

Eman24dx said:

Only 9 days now. Couldn't wait. And it was so good not sure how much longer I will wait for the next one.

They are stored in a dark area at a steady 68-69 degrees

Click to expand...

There's your answer, then. You are drinking undercarbed beer, so naturally, you don't have as much head as you should.

Well if I pour from a distance I get a nice head like this below. But it quickly goes away. After a few weeks in bottle it should last longer? I had very nice lacing but not sure what that means besides looking cool on the glass. I have drank 3 already but will leave the rest sit. I have 2 in the fridge now. Will they bottle condition in the fridge?

Like this.