My peach honey wheat beer is extremely sour

I made a peach honey wheat beer and it came out extremely sour, is there any way to counteract that? It tasted fine when I moved it to secondary, which is also when I added the peaches. One week later I checked it again and it has this extremely tart/sour taste to it. It also still registered 3% on the hydrometer, so I added more yeast to to help restart activity. Now another week has gone by and it still reads 2.5% and is just as tart as before. What can I do? Thanks in advance.

I'm way too new at brewing to give any definitive answer, but it sort of sounds like maybe some wild yeast/bacteria were introduced along with the peaches? This is just a guess based on what I've read beer might taste like if wild yeast take hold.

Hey, welcome to the forums!

I've used peach before and it ended up tart at first but that will settle. That is unless you slacked on sanitation for your secondary vessel which could result in a souring infection such as lacto.

More questions that will help:
- How long was it in primary?
- What yeast strain?
- All grain or extract?
- Original gravity and current specific gravity? Sorry, 3.5% and 2.5% don't tell us anything

Ummm....3%...from what.....talk to me in gravity dude.....me no speekee dee percentagee!

I used peaches last year in a kolsch and it was a bit sour. After sitting for about 6 months it became really tart and full of peaches, so it is possible that it is just the peaches giving a sour flavor. Did you do anything to sanitize them or did you throw them strait into secondary? Also how many LBs of peaches did you add?

It's possible you got some sort of infection though.

Did you wash the peaches or anything to prevent some type of bacteria or wild yeast from infecting?

In addition, its always hard to base what the beer is going to taste like until it had been carbonated. Even the CO2 make small flaws go away.

mcaple1 said:

Ummm....3%...from what.....talk to me in gravity dude.....me no speekee dee percentagee!

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Agreed. We need gravity points. I can say that fermenting fruit will often give a sour flavor. So, either it wasn't done fermenting or your addition of yeast to the secondary caused tue fruit sugars to ferment.
Full disclosure: I've not used peach but have used strawberries many times.

My initial reading was 1.050 sp. gr. I let it sit in primary for a week and a half. I moved it to secondary and let it sit for one week, then I added the peaches and honey. As for the peaches, I used 7, 1 lb. bags of frozen peaches and allowed them to thaw to room temp. I didn't wash them, I assumed, maybe foolishly, that they would have been cleaned before packaging. I added the honey at this time as well, a week into secondary. I used 2 lbs. of clover honey, which I pasteurized before adding. I let that sit for 1 1/2 weeks, then racked it a 3rd time to remove the peaches. It has sat for 2 weeks since the 3rd racking and the current reading is 1.020 sp. gr. Thank you all for the quick responses.

1. frozen fruit is usually ok...the freezing and such kills most spores.
2. adding honey raised your gravity. 1lb of honey in 1gal of water yields about 1.035 gravity. So 2lbs in 5 gallons would add about 1.014 to your OG, so really you have a 1.064 OG and a current 1.020 gravity.

3. its hard to rack a beer, then add more fermentables ,and not end up with a stuck batch. racking removes most of the yeast, then you add sugar and the current yeast is almost barely up to the task. Patience will pay off with this batch.

4. i've heard a lot of times that peaches just don't add their flavor and aroma well unless its tree ripened fruit. Good luck!

Every fruit I have ever added to secondaries from blueberries, to strawberries, to cherries have had some amount of sour/tart to them at the start but almost always mellow out within a month or two in the bottle.

Not to sound like a jack@ss, but did you try the frozen peaches, I have never had a sweet store-bought frozen bag o peaches, they always seem tart/sour to me

I'm very new at this but I have been reading that if you use a Safale 05 at fermentation temperatures under 60F you will end up with some mild peachy flavors. Possibly try that next time instead of actual fruit?