Sourness at bottling

So, the last few batches my beers have turned out meh. I didn't know exactly what it was until someone pointed out to me that it tastes kind of sour or acidic, and they all have that flavor. I suspect this is some kind of lacto infection?

Now, I paid really close attention on my last bottling day. The final hydrometer sample before bottling tasted great. However, they're (only) a couple of weeks into the bottle now, but with the same friggin taste. I bottle from a bucket w/ spigot and ferment in glass and sanitize with 1 tbsp/gal bleach for at least 20 minutes, boil the sugar in water before racking on top of it. I took the spigot apart as much as I could, but there didn't seem to be any gunk anywhere in there. I'm also gonna try switching to star san.

A few questions...

1) How can you thoroughly clean an autosiphon?
2) Anybody ever bottle from a glass carboy instead of a bucket?
3) How often are bottling wands the cause of infection?
4) Easy way to bottle without a bottling wand?
5) Tips about avoiding this in the future or figuring out the cause?

Does the sourness / acidic flavor get better with time or does it get worse? How much time have you given the bottles?

• Star san.
• Orange Homer buckets from Home depot
• Spray bottle from home depot (looks like a superlarge windex bottle)

Keep the spray bottle full of star san mix. When doing anything, also make a batch in your homer bucket. Use liberally. Liberally. Repeat.

Erik53 said:

Does the sourness / acidic flavor get better with time or does it get worse? How much time have you given the bottles?

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It pretty much remains constant. Some of the bottles with the taste are 2 months old.

rocketman768 said:

1) How can you thoroughly clean an autosiphon?
2) Anybody ever bottle from a glass carboy instead of a bucket?
3) How often are bottling wands the cause of infection?
4) Easy way to bottle without a bottling wand?
5) Tips about avoiding this in the future or figuring out the cause?

Click to expand...

1. sure. Homer bucket with 1gal of starsan mix. Pump away for 10 seconds back into bucket. Then, take your spray bottle and spray the outside of it.
2. Nope. Always from my bottling bucket. Starsan that sucker first, including the inside of the spigot. Use spray bottle and dump from homer bucket.
3. Guess: often when the homer bucket and spray bottle are not deployed.
4. You could use the valve on the spigot, but that is not easy.
5. Starsan the crap out of everything. Take a shot at using some filtered water from the grocery store. Try changing your base malt. Make a breakfast stout... you won't taste the sour over the strong roast and coffee in one of those!

passedpawn said:

1. sure. Homer bucket with 1gal of starsan mix. Pump away for 10 seconds back into bucket. Then, take your spray bottle and spray the outside of it.
2. Nope. Always from my bottling bucket. Starsan that sucker first, including the inside of the spigot. Use spray bottle and dump from homer bucket.
3. Guess: often when the homer bucket and spray bottle are not deployed.
4. You could use the valve on the spigot, but that is not easy.
5. Starsan the crap out of everything. Take a shot at using some filtered water from the grocery store. Try changing your base malt. Make a breakfast stout... you won't taste the sour over the strong roast and coffee in one of those!

Click to expand...

Thanks man.

rocketman768 said:

It pretty much remains constant. Some of the bottles with the taste are 2 months old.

Click to expand...

With my first 2-3 batches I had a similar sourness problem, but the off flavor was improving after two months in the bottle/kegs. I concluded it was some sort of off-flavor produced by the yeast resulting from less than optimal fermentation temps. Once I rigged up a fermentation chamber, I haven't had any further issues. I guess that since your sourness isn't getting any better with time, it would affirm your theory of a lacto infection. Let us know if better sanitation solves the problem.

Keep an eye out for a telltale ring of gunk at the liquid line in the bottle neck. It takes a while to form in some infections. But it's pretty much a dead giveaway.