was there a way to save this batch?

So I was making a very low gravity beer for my wife the other night. (1.028) it took me longer than I was expecting with my new ag setup. So at 4 in the morning after I hooked up the chiller, I fell asleep... When I got up the next afternoon, highly pissed off, i racked into a carboy. I couldn't think of anything else to do so I mixed in some camden tablets and let it sit for 24 hours before yeast hoping that would save it. I think it still smelled ok before the tablets but a day after I pitched the yeast it smelled like funk. After almost throwing up from the smell I threw it out. If it would have been higher gravity I might have tried to sour it but anyway... Was there anything I could have done differently?

Not sure why you threw camden tablets in after it was chilled and then let it sit again for another 24 hours

You should have pitched the yeast at that point and let it go to town. What yeast was it? There are some yeasts out there are that really don't smell to great as they chomp on sugars, I probably would have left it alone and you probably would have had beer

duboman said:

Not sure why you threw camden tablets in after it was chilled and then let it sit again for another 24 hours

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Campden tablets are regularly used this way in wine making. In addition to their usefulness as a water treatment, campden tablets are good at eliminating wild yeasts and bacteria in unfermented juice/wort.

That said, I agree, pitching the yeast right away and then leaving it alone until it's done would have been my course of action.

duboman said:

Not sure why you threw camden tablets in after it was chilled and then let it sit again for another 24 hours

You should have pitched the yeast at that point and let it go to town. What yeast was it? There are some yeasts out there are that really don't smell to great as they chomp on sugars, I probably would have left it alone and you probably would have had beer

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It was wlp001. I figured the wort would be infected from sitting all night in the open while I slept so I threw in the Camden tablets to try to kill any wild yeast or bacteria before pitching the yeast. I have use 001 before and it had never smelled bad while fermenting