infected, unhopped wort.

i was busy this week, and i did my mash later in the evening, and then sealed it up in a ale pail for a couple days (its now the weekend, so i can brew). when i opened the lid, it was already fermenting, krausen, bubbles, and all the other signs of fermentation. im not too worried since im going to boil it now, but i am wondering if that wild yeast is eating my fermentables, before my actual yeast strain can, and will that affect my OG/FG. still gonna make beer with it, just kinda curious.

Ah gross, that's like cooking a meal and then leaving it in a bucket out for a few days. Gotta put it in the fridge! I'm sure some of the sugar has been eaten already if you have krausen going on. I'm surprised it took off so fast..not to be rude but did you sanitize that bucket? Take a gravity reading and then figure out how much you need to boil to hit your target gravity. Hopefully you don't have too many off flavors due to the microbes swimming around in your beer.

That sounds like sour mashing. Its a different way to get a sour beer. On Basic Brewing Radio they talked about it for a little while in one of the episodes. They said that after 24 hours of letting the mash sit, it would smell horrible, then 48 hours in it should start smelling a little more sour.

I'm not completely caught up on how sour mashing works as I have yet to do it. Here's a link to BYO on how to do it and how it will turn out. http://***********/stories/techniqu...ll-grain-brewing/1723-sour-mashing-techniques

I would try it and see what happens. The boil should kill anything in it. It may not taste like it would have but it should be sterile when it goes into the fermenter.

well i figured i should at least try it before i passed judgement on it....the term "vomit inducing" kinda describes the sickly sweet taste which is then followed up by a sour-ish taste. it was horrible, but ive learned my lesson, if im not going to make beer in one day, then i shouldn't make the wort, it just leaves too much to chance. and that taste is still haunting me.

dkm11b said:

well i figured i should at least try it before i passed judgement on it....the term "vomit inducing" kinda describes the sickly sweet taste which is then followed up by a sour-ish taste. it was horrible, but ive learned my lesson, if im not going to make beer in one day, then i shouldn't make the wort, it just leaves too much to chance. and that taste is still haunting me.

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Yeesh, I wouldn't try straight up unhopped wort that has been allowed to have microbes invade. You don't have the protection of the hops or the alcohol. It might be fine...but a nice sugary broth without alcohol or hops sounds like a habitat that a wide variety of bacteria can thrive in. The only protection you have is from the acidity.

just to clarify, i tasted the hydrometer sample only, after that i dumped it.

The beer would have been sour from the lacto on the grain. It doesnt boil out. cheers!

thats what i thought, and it was reinforced by the lhbs guys. pretty nasty tasting stuff, that wasnt going to boil out.