30% Attenuation tastes awful

I brewed a Belgian Wit last Saturday (1.048 original gravity), and pitched WLP400. It bubbled along nicely, and then it kind of stopped bubbling. The beer cleared out pretty well, which I took as a sign of being close to ready. Thinking maybe I'd bottle of move to secondary soon, depending on my mood, I took a sample.
I of course overfilled my test tube, so I drank a sip out of it to get it down where it wouldn't overflow when I added the hydrometer. GAH! Yuck... it was awful. Really really terrible. My first thought was infection, but then I measured the SG. 1.030. That's 30% attenuation, slightly low. Looks like I have some time to go.
I read the White Labs site, and it looks like it's a long fermenter, and needs some good swirling action. So I'll go do that...

Not really a question here, but more a warning that wow... half fermented beer is awful.

Wit yeasts are notorious for inconsistent fermentation cycles.

They are also prone to frothing up so much the yeast beaches itself on the fermenter walls. Give that fermenter a good rocking back and forth to knock that yeast back into solution.

I've had wit go like crazy for three days. Subside completely for 2 days...then start back up again for a week.

Thasss some crazy **** that wit yeast is....

That is one of the three strains I regularly use, and I haven't had any problems with it, but I am far too lazy to open my fermenter until it is time too bottle after 4 weeks. I always have had good final gravities.

BierMuncher said:

Wit yeasts are notorious for inconsistent fermentation cycles.

They are also prone to frothing up so much the yeast beaches itself on the fermenter walls. Give that fermenter a good rocking back and forth to knock that yeast back into solution.

Click to expand...

Yup, the yeast must have been beached. I gave the carboy a good swirl, and watched the beer go from clear back to "Fermentation cloudy" very quickly. And sure enough, this morning there is about 4 inches of krausen, so something must be happening again.

But from now on, I'm testing the gravity before i take a sip.