Porter I am Bottling Smells Sour / Yeasty

Bottling my robust porter and I for sure notice a sour / yeasty smell and taste to the uncarbonated wort. I had a hard time placing the smell / taste as it's really not that sour per say... what it reminds me most of is the smell of liquid yeast when you open the vile (although not nearly that strong).

Thoughts? I am thinking as it smells kinda yeasty things are fine and I should RDWHAHB, but am curious others thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Here is the recipe:

9.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 84.44 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
0.50 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 4.44 %
0.50 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 4.44 %
0.50 oz Magnum [12.90 %] (65 min) Hops 22.4 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [4.90 %] (35 min) Hops 6.9 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [4.90 %] (10 min) Hops 3.0 IBU
1 pkg SafAle #S05 - no starter

How long has it been in primary?

It's been in the primary for 25 days..... did not rack to secondary.

OG: 1.062

Gravity Reading a Just Took: 1:012

The "sour" taste isn't that strong. It smells more "sour" than it tastes... but not bret sour, more like the "sour" kinda smell / taste of a liquid yeast vile - if that makes any sense.

one other variable to mention - fermentation temp was 68, but jumped to 71 a day or two.

the more i taste it, i think it's an infection.... it really tasted good going into the primary.... something has changed.

i think i gonna bottle up 12 or so (just to see) and then dump the rest.

unless, someone can convince me in the next 30 minutes things might still be ok - i really hope so!

Keep bottling.

Hope I'm not too late.

Many things work themselves out in aging - it can be surprising.

Most of mine improves a great deal with long aging, and I recall a tale from a judge who had a "bad batch" and bottled some "as an example of an infected beer", then opened it two years later and found that it had morphed to wonderful.

<edit>
Someone has something in their signature about not dumping a batch until it "tastes like satan's anus, and six months later still tastes like satan's anus" - It would be terrible to bottle 12, find them wonderful in a year, and only have 11.

Ecnerwal - thanks, but too late.... i only bottled one! i started convincing myself it was an infection and decided i didn't want to "contaminate" all my bottling equipment... so i poured out enough to bottle one and dumped the rest.

while it was going down the drain it smelled pretty bad (sour, musty, kinda like dirty leather), so i feel like i did the right thing, but am for sure not positive.

damn the range of emotions in the last hour !

(it for sure did not taste like satan's anus....hmmmm.... damn it, should have bottled more than one.... guess i'll stash that guy away for a long time and then the results will be known.)

mendlodc said:

damn the range of emotions in the last hour !

(it for sure did not taste like satan's anus....hmmmm.... damn it, should have bottled more than one.... guess i'll stash that guy away for a long time and then the results will be known.)

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Oh bummer man... that one bottle is going to be awesome in a year and that's all you are going to have. This was just out of the primary? Sitting on all the yeast cake and trub? Of course it has the potential to smell sour. That is just green beer.

Its worth bottling it or even letting it sit for another 2 weeks and let it clear up.

yeast cake and trub you say.... that makes some sense for sure.

a bit more background. i brewed two days in a row. first day was ed wort's haus pale and the next day the porter.... 8 days later i split ed's pale into two secondaries - one dry hop and one not. i left the porter in the primary the whole time (25 days).

today i tried to bottle all these... the ed haus pale split batch tasted great, then i tasted the porter and got alarmed by the sour taste / smell i mention above and over the course of an hour i convice myself it's an infection.

your trub / cake / green beer suggestion makes sense as that was a different variable in the porter from ed's pale (that i racked to secondary)

either way, for sure a learning process for me and i hope for anyone who might stumble onto this this thread

thanks all.

been thinking about this some more.... so i have brewed about 30 batches now and this is the first that smelled / tasted bad coming out of primary.... some even sat on the trub and yeast case longer than the porter in this thread. as a result, now i am starting to doubt that as an explanation.

either way, wish i would have bottled more, but at least i have that one.

any other thoughts?

It was probably completely normal. A 1.062 beer will have a stronger yeasty smell coming out of the primary because of the large quantity of yeast built up during a normal fermentation. When I took the cap off my Christmas beer (1.092) to take a gravity sample and make sure it wasn't stuck, the yeast smell about knocked me over!

You violated Revvy's law and dumped it.

mendlodc said:

today i tried to bottle all these... the ed haus pale split batch tasted great, then i tasted the porter and got alarmed by the sour taste / smell i mention above and over the course of an hour i convice myself it's an infection.

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I wonder if you cleansed your palate before tasting the porter? Sound like a wine snob don't I?

Sometimes I taste my wine after tasting beer in carboys and the wine will taste really off. Then I just east some food - bread, crackers or something like that and that will clear the beer taste and allow me to taste the wine without the bitterness of the IIPA affecting my tastebuds.

Some quote room temperature for their primary fermentation rather than the actual high temperature of the beer in the primary. This may indicate that because this was high gravity that the beer could have been as high as 80F due to exothermic conditions during primary fermentation which would give bacteria a chance to get a foothold. In my 36 years of brewing I realized early on that if I was going to be able to always get good fermentations that a refrigerator was needed and so after that I have never had any infected beer and that is why I sound like a broken record every time I write about this subject.

Parting thought:
If commercial brewers could get away without refrigeration don't you think they would do that to save money?

WBC said:

If commercial brewers could get away without refrigeration don't you think they would do that to save money?

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Man I would so like to have one of those pressurized, jacketed, glycol-cooled conical fermenters sitting in my garage. That'd be sweet.

Saccharomyces said:

Man I would so like to have one of those pressurized, jacketed, glycol-cooled conical fermenters sitting in my garage. That'd be sweet.

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You could later but for now just use Sanke kegs. I just clean them up after removing the spear assy and boil water and add PBW and scrub and then rinse upside down and fill 1/4 full and boil just before use. Cool with foil over the opening. Add sanitizer and swirl around 1 minute before filling. Only fill with 12 gallons max. You need headroom for the krausen. I put the keg in the fridge and put a stopper with a stainless tube through it and hook up 3/4 hose to my container of starsan in the fridge as an air lock. I like this because it can not break when cleaning it. All the beer tastes great because it is all in one fermenter. I use a piano dolly to move it to the fridge and it slides right in.

Cugel said:

I wonder if you cleansed your palate before tasting the porter? Sound like a wine snob don't I?

Sometimes I taste my wine after tasting beer in carboys and the wine will taste really off. Then I just east some food - bread, crackers or something like that and that will clear the beer taste and allow me to taste the wine without the bitterness of the IIPA affecting my tastebuds.

Click to expand...

For sure cleansed the palate - even kept trying it over time in various settings as i was trying to determine how to describe the taste / smell

WBC said:

Some quote room temperature for their primary fermentation rather than the actual high temperature of the beer in the primary. This may indicate that because this was high gravity that the beer could have been as high as 80F due to exothermic conditions during primary fermentation which would give bacteria a chance to get a foothold. In my 36 years of brewing I realized early on that if I was going to be able to always get good fermentations that a refrigerator was needed and so after that I have never had any infected beer and that is why I sound like a broken record every time I write about this subject.

Parting thought:
If commercial brewers could get away without refrigeration don't you think they would do that to save money?

Click to expand...

Hmm... interesting, yeah temperature control is something i need to look into and probably my next investment.... i've been under the impression that if i have a steady and predictable ambient temp then things should be ok, but as you state above that does no control of the actual fermentation temp. fyi - the temp readings i quote in this thread as from a stick on fermometer so (i think) are somewhat measuring the ferm temp, right?

mendlodc said:

the more i taste it, i think it's an infection.... it really tasted good going into the primary.... something has changed.

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I'm a nOOb so you really shouldn't listen to me but isn't it supposed to change?

mendlodc said:

Ecnerwal - thanks, but too late.... i only bottled one! i started convincing myself it was an infection and decided i didn't want to "contaminate" all my bottling equipment... so i poured out enough to bottle one and dumped the rest.

while it was going down the drain it smelled pretty bad (sour, musty, kinda like dirty leather), so i feel like i did the right thing, but am for sure not positive.

Click to expand...

That was a very bad move. RDWHAHB. Sorry to inform you of this, but chances are it would have turned out good.

That was a waste.

Lurpinator said:

I'm a nOOb so you really shouldn't listen to me but isn't it supposed to change?

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yeah, i guess - ha.... problem is it wen from tasting like yummy sweet wort to sour flat beer.

OMBrewer said:

That was a very bad move. RDWHAHB. Sorry to inform you of this, but chances are it would have turned out good.

That was a waste.

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Yeah, that is what i am starting to realize ! You gotta learn somehow though.

I had the same thing happen with my porter. Tasted really good when I racked it to the secondary and tasted a little sour when I bottled it. First sample at 2 weeks tasted wierd, kinda tart and yeasty. But from what I have read it was just a young beer kinda taste. It has been getting progressively better. Its at 4 weeks now and pretty tasty, I think it's gonna be great in another couple of weeks.

mendlodc said:

Hmm... interesting, yeah temperature control is something i need to look into and probably my next investment.... I've been under the impression that if i have a steady and predictable ambient temp then things should be OK, but as you state above that does no control of the actual fermentation temp. fyi - the temp readings i quote in this thread as from a stick on fermometer so (i think) are somewhat measuring the ferm temp, right?

Click to expand...

Unless the thermometer is in the fermenter you are reading whatever environment the thermometer is placed in. When fermentation happens it heats up the liquid because all those yeasties are working out. In bigger tanks like a brewery has they like to have natural convection in the tank to prevent hot spots (They want it to self stir or mix). This happens in a carboy too as you can see the yeast swimming around. If you put a thermometer into a fermenter and another thermometer outside you can see the difference in temperature while this is going on. The stick on thermometers only work so good as the glass is being cooled by the outside but certainly better than nothing. I find that if I put carboys into a fridge the stick on type is not real accurate due to the cold air currents.

See if your bottle develops a white ring at the surface of the beer. That will for sure indicate it has turned. That's what happened to the ones I had go bad.

I just got my first glass out of the keg of Grants Perfect Porter clone and am getting the sour flavor as well. Not sure where it would have come from but it is making me wonder if its a keeper. Sour enough that I wont drink it as I don't enjoy sours.
I would like to learn what caused it as I have been brewing a number of years and have had off flavors but nothing like this.
Batch size 5gal / primary ferment 4weeks @ about 65° / secondary 4 weeks@ about 65° / aging in keg about 4-6weeks @ 40°