Vinegar smell (kind of)

I bottled a batch of IPA a few weeks ago and when I removed the fermentation lock, I was expecting an etirely different aroma than what I was greeted with. I had a hint of what almost smelled like vinegar.

When I made the batch I used distilled water instead of tap or spring.

Any ideas?

How does it taste?

Need more info for any good ideas. That being said, I've had some very unpleasant experiences with sticking my nose in the primary too early or after just removing the airlock. On my first batches when I was only leaving in primary for a week it smelled very much like vomit. They all ended up being good beers though.

I haven't tasted it yet, it has been bottled for three weeks. I will be putting it in the fridge tonight and will know tomorrow.

Why did you use distilled water? There are plenty of minerals in spring water that are very good for making beer.

The guy who bought the ingredients made that decision... I have typically been using spring water, but used tap water in the batch that is in the carboy now.

dadsmakinbeeragain said:

The guy who bought the ingredients made that decision... I have typically been using spring water, but used tap water in the batch that is in the carboy now.

Click to expand...

Well, be careful of tap water too. Check to see what sort of chlorine levels you may have in your local water supply.

Vinegar is not a good thing to smell in an IPA. Hopefully it will be ok.

I use bottled spring water, but it comes from just down the road, and I will sometimes use tap water that comes from the filter on my sink, although since they rerouted th ewater lines around here, I probably don't even need to do that now.

Let us know when you taste/smell it after you've chilled them down/ Vinegar is often the result of acetobactor infections from fruit flies. A lot of us had fruit fly issues this summer. Did you happen to notice anyone around?

It could be just green beer, but vinegar sounds like acetobactor. If it is vinegar don't dump all of it, you might have some nifty malt vinegar to give to people. (When life gives you lemons, when beer gives you vinegar...)

I've also noticed it in some bars this year, Killians in a lot of bars seems really easy to turn in some places.

But you really won't know till you taste it...A lot of funky smells/aromas do occur in the early stages of fermentation.