Sour Porter

Sorry guys, hate to do this, but could use some input. So I have had my version of the Bee Cave Robust porter in secondary for a month now. When I would take samples the taste was decidedly roasty and porter like. I primed with munton's creamy-x and mini-keg'ed the beer last saturday. I tried a sample today. The roastiness is still there, but now there is definitely a sour tang. Is that from infection, or maybe the keg just needs more time to condition? I mean worst case I can call it a historic porter right? Any input would be much appreciated.

Bump, anybody?

I'm not familiar with Munton's Creamy-X and couldn't find much about it through google, but that would be my first thing to question. What exactly is the product? When I started kegging and wanted to bottle a portion of my beer I would use carbonation drops which I've now learned are very prone to infecting beer.

Sounds yummy.

Really.

I had a sour milk stout once and it was excellent.

You may be right about it being good, it's not like I planned to throw it out or anything, but it was a taste I definitely did not expect and was trying to figure out the source. I misspelled Kreamy-X earlier, you can find entries about it on the forum, it kind of simulates using nitro for dark beers. But you may be right this is the first time I've used it and perhaps it went off.

sounds like an infection. dose it taste like sourdough? ive had an sour tasting infection in my beer and thats what it reminded me of. also was there a white film on the top of the beer? this can be a sign of infection.

Yeah I think it may be infected too. I'm hoping it was in isolated incident related to the one mini keg i tapped which was only half full to begin with. Unfortunately it may have been related to the rapid jump in temp as my roommate decided he didn't want to use the AC in October and the inside temp jumped from 73 to 85 in the course of a day while it was priming.

My initial impression (humble impression) is that it just needs more time. I know that when I taste a beer that has only been conditioning with priming sugar for less than a week, it is still pretty sweet. Maybe the KreamyX as a priming agent has a sour taste to it. At this point, there is little you can do but wait. If it is an infection, nothing you can do about it now. However, if it is still green, time is your friend. I'd say give it a few more weeks in the mini-keg, try it again, and let us know how it goes. I've been interested in trying the KreamyX, and would like to know about your impression.

Good luck!

ldgenius2000 said:

my roommate decided he didn't want to use the AC in October and the inside temp jumped from 73 to 85 in the course of a day while it was priming.

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temp wont cause an infection. if anything it would shorten the carbonation time.

Yeah i mean I suspect infection too, just wanted to rule out temp straining the yeast.

hot yeast wont cause a sour taste. high temps causes, among other things, esters which are not sour.

Another option may have been related to your ph and it is just now becoming apparent. Did you check your ph during the mash? Well, was this a AG batch first? If you did not make any adjustments to bring your ph back up after putting in all that dark grain, you ph may have been lower than ideal for a dark beer and if low enough, can lead to sour tastes.

You may be right about the mash, I did a partial and so I never really care about ph but with the darker grains you're right it may have been an issue.

humann_brewing said:

Another option may have been related to your ph and it is just now becoming apparent. Did you check your ph during the mash? Well, was this a AG batch first? If you did not make any adjustments to bring your ph back up after putting in all that dark grain, you ph may have been lower than ideal for a dark beer and if low enough, can lead to sour tastes.

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I'm going to be brewing up an AG Imperial Porter this weekend, but I've never done anything to raise my pH (but I've never used a high dark-grain bill before). Is there anything I should do to raise my pH? I don't have any Litmus Strips to test my pH.

DRoyLenz said:

I'm going to be brewing up an AG Imperial Porter this weekend, but I've never done anything to raise my pH (but I've never used a high dark-grain bill before). Is there anything I should do to raise my pH? I don't have any Litmus Strips to test my pH.

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What is the hardness of the water you are going to be using like?

If you have soft water you will want to add some chalk or baking soda, if you are going to add just 1, I would go with chalk since it will bring your Ca up too which will help the yeasties out, Baking Soda also adds Na which you don't want to go too high.

If you are using well water I wouldn't worry about it, but if you are using tap I would add some chalk.

humann_brewing said:

What is the hardness of the water you are going to be using like?

If you have soft water you will want to add some chalk or baking soda, if you are going to add just 1, I would go with chalk since it will bring your Ca up too which will help the yeasties out, Baking Soda also adds Na which you don't want to go too high.

If you are using well water I wouldn't worry about it, but if you are using tap I would add some chalk.

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When you say add chalk, would just regular blackboard chalk work? Or is there a specific kind that I'm unfamiliar with. Is there some way for me to calculate how much I'll need to add?

DRoyLenz said:

When you say add chalk, would just regular blackboard chalk work? Or is there a specific kind that I'm unfamiliar with. Is there some way for me to calculate how much I'll need to add?

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I got chalk from the homebrew shop, the chemical makeup is CaCO3. I am not sure if sidewalk chalk would work.

On calculations, do you have beersmith, there is a water profile thing built in. Also a lot of people like BreWater which is free.

But basically 1 gram of chalk is going to add 106 ppm of Ca and 158 ppm of HCO3 per gallon of water. For example I am brewing a porter this weekend and will mash with 3 gallons of water which I will add 1.1g of chalk, 1.8g of Baking soda, .6g of CaCL and .5g of epsom salt which is based off my water profile.

Also I need to add more to the boil kettle in the same ratios. So if I get 2 gallons sparged for my first runnings. and get 5.5g more to the kettle for a total of 7.5g.

7.5-2 = 5.5
5.5/2 = 2.75
2.75 x my mash additions go into the kettle.

i'm getting the same thing from a sierra nevada porter clone.

roasty, but a sour twang at the end. granted, this is the hydrometer sample at 24 days, and close to room temp. OP, have you tried yours since? sourness go away?

it's really f-ing good aside. fermented wlp001 (no starter but double pitched) at mid 60's. partial mash, donno ph

anyone?

i hope this thing goes away....

moto, where did you get your ingredients from, what kind of extract, and what water are you using? Fermentation temps, how much yeast did you pitch? Does the beer have a sour, vinegary aroma? You might be okay, sometimes these off flavors go away with time. That porter doesn't have an overwhelming amount of dark malts that I think it would greatly acidify your wort.

The sourness I guess went away or I just don't notice it anymore. I think just drinking it over time I don't mind it anymore. Given that it's a porter though I'm leaving it for a few more months and seeing the result.

14thstreet said:

moto, where did you get your ingredients from, what kind of extract, and what water are you using? Fermentation temps, how much yeast did you pitch? Does the beer have a sour, vinegary aroma? You might be okay, sometimes these off flavors go away with time. That porter doesn't have an overwhelming amount of dark malts that I think it would greatly acidify your wort.

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Got them from the new Northern Brewer store the day I brewed. Double-pitched, WL001, fermented at 60-65 room temp.

here's the recipe:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/1st-ag-finished-about-1-30am-147759/#post1687614

when i first opened the fermentor (used a bucket for the 1st time) it burned my nose with what I guess I'll call vinegar. It had the burn of vinegar/sulphur, but it didn't smell like, anything, really.

Took a hydro reading, then drink at colder temps (45-50) and it was good and roasty. then as it warmed up some sourness started to come at the back end. it became worse and worse as it warmed.

i used Ice Mountain Spring water, because I'm on a well and haven't got my water report yet. Extract was breiss DME.

idgenius-
Great news. Unfortunately I don't have much time, this is for a New Years Eve Party

We'll see how it does under carb. I plan on kegging it tonight, then leaving it until Dec 31. I brewed it on 11/18, hopefully it'll have been enough time.

Hmmm, reading your brew day you mentioned your runnings went to your fermentation bucket. Now while you said you didn't sanitize at that point, which is okay because you're going to boil the wort, did you clean and sanitize that fermentation bucket before you put your boiled, cooled wort into it for fermentation? If not, that could be a source for contamination. Also, I looked at the water report for that spring water and it has a wide range of possible carbonate levels. The carbonate would help counter any acidity that your malt creates in the mash. If your particular spring water had low levels of carbonate, your mash may have been quite acidic. Not sure if that leads to the problems you're having, but it is something to look into. It's possible you may have been better using your well water (filtered and not through any water-softener) to balance the acidity.

yeah, bucket was sanitized. I didn't use my ferm bucket to transfer, I used my bottling bucket.

We'll see how it is under carb I guess. first few sips were awesome, then the sourness crept in towards the end. it was weird.