Sour aftertaste in dunkel weisse

Hiyo,

So, I've got a dunkel weisse in a secondary fermenter, and when I transferred it from primary (at about 2wks), I took a taste, and it had a pretty sour, lingering aftertaste. I don't see any visible evidence of bacterial infection, but i presume that's still likely, given the taste.

I'm but a wee baby in the world of homebrewing... am I doomed to have icky beer? will this sourness mellow out in the coming weeks? is sourness common at such an early stage with german-style wheat beers? is bacterial contamination without any visual signs a common thing?

Thanks,
derp

RDWHAHB. you cant judge a beer's taste when its green. wait till its been in the bottle for a month.

That sour aftertaste could be from fermenting at too high of a temperature for the yeast you used. We're going to need some more info. What yeast did you use? What is the temperature that you're fermenting at?

Also, don't worry. Your beer is only two weeks old. It will take longer than that to get all of the flavors to gel and for the yeast to clean up after themselves.

It was a Wyeast smack pack... 3068, I believe.

My fermentation did start out a bit hot, I pitched too warm to start, and then it was hovering around 78 for a day or so, then cooling down to 72-74. The ambient temp tends to be around 65-68, so that's what it sat at after the more active fermentation stopped.

I don't expect that the first day of being at 78 would have caused the sour aftertaste after only a day, especially since the yeast would just be getting started. If I'm not mistaken, being in the 72-74 range is actually where the 3068 yeast works best, of course being around 65-68 isn't bad either for that strain of yeast.

Since your beer was only about two weeks old when you first tasted it, it is probably just some excess diacetal (sp?) that is in your beer, which is a natural byproduct of fermenting yeast. But don't worry about that either. The yeast will clean that up while in secondary, while bottle conditioning if you plan on bottling, and ageing if it makes it that long before you drink the rest of it.

Thanks for the feedback. I had been reading sour=infection, so it's good to hear that time should/could fix the flavor. I've been trying to follow the RDWHAHB mantra, but it's easy to W and hard to R when you don't have any HB to drink yet.

I know what you mean. We've all been there. Research and asking questions about what is going on with your beer is great. One of the best ways to learn and help take care of the W.

On the other hand, the R is a great time to check out some other beers and beer types that you may like to try brewing or replicating in the future.

Just a quick update, the beer is bottled and that sour taste has almost completely gone away. It's a banana bomb, though, which is a bit overpowering for me. However, it's drinkable, and maybe another month in bottles will make it even better.

Glad to hear it. Another month in the bottle, if it makes it that long, should mellow it out a little.

derpsperk said:

Just a quick update, the beer is bottled and that sour taste has almost completely gone away. It's a banana bomb, though, which is a bit overpowering for me. However, it's drinkable, and maybe another month in bottles will make it even better.

Click to expand...

That could be from the heat.. will be better later / next time.

I've got a golden weiss in the primary right now that has been fermenting at a steady 67F... first couple of days it was perculating along there was a strong smell of bananas - I also used Wyeast 3068. Haven't tasted it yet so I'm curious now... Its still a solid 2 weeks before I'll consider bottling it tho...

The banana dies down, and eventually vanishes with conditioning. Prior to that, the taste will be strong (i.e. the Banana beer).

Thanks for the reassurance... I was thinking about renaming it a Banana-weizen and making labels with monkeys on them, maybe with a tagline, "You'll go ape**** for this beverage!" But maybe I'll hold off if that banana flavor will dissipate.