So if it's infected.....now what?

First AG batch seems really sour at bottling time. Im gonna give it a few weeks to hopefully improve, but Im not very optimistic. What needs to be done from here? I assume I should just toss all the bottles? What about the fermenting bucket? How thoroughly do I need to clean it? Or do I just get a new one? What other steps need to be taken?

First, be very careful with those bottles, infections can lead to bottle bombs. I would toss the bottles but you can clean them if you want to be painfully thorough (pbw or oxyclean soak and then a bottle brush, then sanitize with star san). I would probably toss the bucket also, but again, an overnight soak in PBW and then a long soak in star san would probably do it. Also, change out all of your hoses. ONe infection sucks, two in a row REALLY sucks. Sorry that happened man, I've been there. Best thing is to just change everything out.

Before you jump to conclusions, is there any way you can share some of this batch with another, possibly more experienced brewer?

Could you give us more information on the recipe, yeast, and fermatation?

Not all off flavors are always an infection, and this is an opportunity to learn. We have a friend who has been doing mr. beer batches for months now, and he's made some really terrible beer (due to process and poor ingredients), but we've been tasting his beer and giving feedback on how and/or why he ended up with those results.

I'd get some more details and feedback before dumping it all and nuking your equipment from orbit.

Well I plan on letting the bottles condition/carbonate/age like normal before I determine what (if any) problem exists. To save myself a lot of typing, here's a thread I started the other day about the problem: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/help-id-my-problem-1st-biab-ag-208756/

Long story short though, the wort tasted fine and even after a week in the fermenter it tasted good, then the following week was sour and not tasty at all.

As I stated earlier, if you are going to let the bottles age, put them somewhere safe just in case the pressure builds and you get bombs.

If it is a very noticible SOUR vs a BITTER... then the chances are pretty damn good that you have an "infection" and I always put that in quotes because one man's "infection" is another man's perfect beer. There is actually an entire BJCP style category called "Sour Ale" so I hate that word... infection. Infection makes it sound BAD. It's not BAD... it's just not what you intended. That doesn't make it bad.

If you're getting sour beer now, there is no real amount of bottle conditioning that you're going to do to get rid of that. The only thing it is going to do is get more sour (assuming you had an FG somewhere north of 1.000.... aaaaaaand I'm guessing you did).

The bottle bomb warning is a good one. If you have buggies in there, at room temp they will eat every last sugar in the beer and continue to carb those bottles until either all of the sugar is gone or the bottle lets go.

My suggestion is that if it is actually sour... and if you don't like sour beers at all... toss em. All you're doing is wasting bottles and space 'cause it'll never un-sour. If you happen to like sours, then I would open one every week or two until they seem like they are REALLY carbonated and then put em in the fridge to dramatically slow down the bugs. That should protect from bottle bombs as long as you end up drinking them within a short period of time.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I think I will put them somewhere safe so if they blow, the cleanup/damage will be minimal.