Problem with my Porter - advice needed

I brewed a porter about six weeks ago - using the northern brewer kit "Midnight Beatdown Wheaton Porter" (http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/PM-MidnightWheatenPorter.pdf.

This was my first partial mash, and I think I learned a great deal about my technique and am confident my next partial mash will go better. However, the result in this batch was not good - suffice it to say that I ended up with a lower than expected OG, and, upon racking to secondary 3 weeks later, a beer that has a very strong, extremely unpleasant burnt smell and taste. There is also a strange off-flavor that is hard to describe. At the first gravity testing when fermentation had finished, I described the beer taste to my wife as "burned poop". I think the OG was 1056 and the gravity when I racked to secondary after about 3 weeks was 1013.

I decided to try to rescue my beer by adding some cacao nibs to the secondary, to try to get a bit of a sweetness to offset the burned, bitter taste. I bought these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OQ4A3S/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 and added about a third of a cup to the secondary (did not sanitize - just dumped 'em in).

Two weeks later, I now have a thin, white, waxy layer across the top of my beer in the secondary carboy, the flavor has not improved, but has added a strong sour tinge, also very unpleasant, and my gravity has gone up from 1013 to 1016.

I have patience and plenty of carboys, so can wait this one out if needed. I'm also willing to experiment - to try something to rescue this beer. I don't relish going through a night of bottling this stinky, bad-tasting beer, so I think my options are: 1) dump it now and forget it; 2) wait it out and taste it again in a month or two; or 3) try something else to "fix" it.

thanks for any thoughts / suggestions

BB

A pic would help figure out what the white layer is, could just be fats/oil from the nibs. The sour flavor makes me think it may have picked up a bug somewhere. The roasty flavor is pretty typical of a green porter or stout. Beers with roasted malts may have to age a month or more to mellow out, but they shouldn't taste sour. Waiting never hurts, and if you have the patience, wait a month and try it again. If it gets worse, then a dump may be in order.

Did you use liquid or dry yeast?

If you used liquid did you make a starter?

The white film is pellicle but the increase in gravity I can't really explain. Anyway, the pellicle is signs of an infection (So is the sour flavor). The 1# of chocolate should not have added a burned flavor, was the bag charred? There will not be a way to salvage this I am afraid to tell you. I wouldn't dump the beer until someone seconds my opinion, but a white film on top of the beer after adding something to it really sounds like an infection. Typically though an infection doesn't set in after the wort has finished fermenting because the alcohol kills almost everything, or at least anything that will hurt you. I bet you also got some serious wild yeast in the cocoa nibs which would go nuts.

Increased gravity is probably down to room temperature correction, I don't think gravity can go up without you physically adding sugar to it...

I will try to add a picture tonight or tomorrow if I get the time. I appreciate everyone's thoughts/comments. I used a 1056 smack pack for my yeast and made a starter. The increased gravity threw me for a loop, but I agree the difference is close enough that it could be explained by room temp change plus normal variance in measurements. I would love to salvage this if possible, and will likely wait at least a month to be certain before I dump it.

One crazy idea I have relates to reports that I've read in the past that Guiness blends a small amount of sour beer in their standard dry stout recipe. It so happens that I have a dry stout fermenting now, that I have separated into two batches of approx. 3 gallons each. I'm going to add cherries to one of them, and was going to leave the other batch as is, but am now considering perhaps siphoning a half gallon or so of my burnt, sour porter into that stout to see if I can re-create that Guiness flavor. Please let me know if I am off-base on that thinking. Would I need to scrap my bottling bucket after bottling that one?

That is a very old style of making beer. Basically, people loved the acidity of the old beer and the sour flavor was made by either the bacteria lacto or by the yeast strain brett b. or brett l. The people loved the slightly sour flavor so much that old beer (About a year old) was added to the fresh beer to make it taste old.

If it is an infection, I would be very careful. Lacto is tiny and can live in beer, and though it might not hurt you it can actually get into cracks where the sanitizer can not. At least this is what I have been told. It is why most sours are made in a glass or stainless steel container. It also populates like crazy in wort and so even if like, a few of them live, if you use that bucket again, it could get infected as well.

Here it is. Thanks for all the comments so far. I know this came from the cacao nibs, because I have a separate 1 gal. jug of the same beer that is fermenting clear as a bell.



I'd like to save this for a while if there is any reasonable chance it will turn out good.

Anyone have any thoughts on whether I should dump this and move on or hang on to it and hope for the best?

Thanks!

I would wait it out for a month or 2, what have you got to lose?