Unintentionally-soured wort?!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

soontobepcv

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
53
Reaction score
1
I thought this would be pretty commonplace but can't find out much otherwise online...

Brewed a batch of around OG 1.6, used a relatively old smackpack of Wyeast 1762, made a starter, it still wasn't showing activity by the time I brewed... kept the wort in the pot (securely covered) for at least 36 hours, pitched the starter and everything smelled good for at least the first day. Now it has an unequivocally-staunchy smell. What to do? I'm guessing that it's not harmful to drink, but just stinky?
 
I would still give this beer a chance. You never know after some time to finish fermenting it may taste fine and the smell was only fermentation gases. Or it will turn out to be a pretty good sour ale.

I would be surprised if you got an infection in the brew kettle if you kept it covered. Its definitely a higher risk than pitching a healthy population of yeast in a sealed fermenter right away but it still should be a small chance.

Next time transfer the wort to the fermenter and pitch the yeast. If it doesn't show action within 72 hours, pitch your backup yeast. I always have several varieties of dry yeast on hand for just this purpose.

Craig
 
Wish I could upload a picture here, but there is are now a few really big bubbles in the krausen - where typically I've only ever seen foam.

The part that weirds me out is that at first there was definitely a good smell from the bubbler that was clearly from the Belgian yeast, but then somehow whatever caused the funk overpowered that. My understanding was that strong yeast activity would crowd out other organisms...


Just shook the carboy and had another smell, the sourness seems to be giving away to the awesome Belgian characteristics.

/crosses fingers
 
Back
Top