Sour taste reported, smells like beer that has been sitting out for a day or so

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BenVanned

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So my first batch was sampled after a week of bottle conditioning... a tart taste was reported and it sort of smells like a half drank beer that sat out all night. There are no visible signs of bacterial infection. Any ideas? Its the Mild Ale Extract from NB... Shouldn't have a tart taste... She said it was pretty decent however i come home to find the bottle half drank sitting on the counter. This is the curse of the brewer who doesnt drink I suppose.. having to rely on other's taste buds.
 
Excess sunlight or fruit flies I suspect. Hard to know for sure, what was your sanitation prior and during conditioning, prior yeast slurry that could of been infected? oxygenation possibility?
 
Don't be so hard on it! Its only been in the bottle a week. And it's your first batch, and we know nothing about your process. I've had beers that for some strange reason a tart flavor came and went during bottle conditioning that wasn't there before I bottled, and wasn't there a month later. I haven't been able to find any good info on why I had that experience (twice), but I can basically guarantee this beer will improve with age.
 
Brew_4iT said:
Excess sunlight or fruit flies I suspect. Hard to know for sure, what was your sanitation prior and during conditioning, prior yeast slurry that could of been infected? oxygenation possibility?

"Lightstruck" beer will taste skunky, like a Heineken. Why are you guessing fruit flies had anything to do with it? They have a hard time making it through an airlock.
 
Sourness can only come from infections or sunlight. And by my experience fruit flies will become a nuisance easily, some bananas fell behind my bread box a while back and since then they have been finding every nook and cranny from my trash, to spent beer in the drain, to piss in my toilet. I saw them buzzing around my stuff over the summer and that was it had to find a solution. Easily enough just leave some glass cups out with beer in it and they will fly into it and commit harry carry. Never had an issue with my beer but from that experience over the summer I can see how they can be.

for me to derive a conclusion from what was specified without know carboy, sanitation, being from Alabama I would suspect that.
 
Brew_4iT said:
Free standing wort during chill...

It could be. Infection is always a crap shoot. Ill bet if you had to put your hand in the wort for some reason it would introduce many fruit flies worth of potentially beer-ruining bacteria, and yet I have had to do this several times and have never had a batch spoil.
 
Used store bought spring water. I sanitized all of my brewing hardware with a bleach and water solution, cooled the wort with an ice batch, rehydrated and pitched the yeast. I was careful not to aerate while racking to my primary, I did make an attempt to rouse the yeast I was making use of an older novelty setup so I had to use a curtain rod to stir but I did sanitize it, and had to take samples with my bottling wand for hydrometer readings which i may have failed to sanitize once or twice. This brings me to my next question.. Is it not harmful to let off that nice pocket of CO2 when taking samples? Every time I took a sample i thought "Great now there is air there".
 
what do you mean by rehydrated the yeast don't need water you mean you did a starter? Did you rinse the bleach out well after using it. The few times I used bleach I had to rinse it out a bunch of times before the smell had left.

One thing I have learned back when I was growing mushrooms (for scientific and studying purposes ;) ) you have to make sure the environment as well as the container itself is as sterile as possible or else everything is compromised. This i've found more explicitly with fungus's surprisingly.
 
Hops will taste even fresher before conditioned if you have done any late additions/ dryhop, for an untrained tongue this could be the culprit. What beer style did you brew?

I wouldn't sweat it too much for my first batch I was ecstatic that I even made beer!

For beer I have noticed conditioning is very important, almost as much as when you have your wort together in a sanitized vessel with yeast that take off within 12 hours. Wort is a highly enriched energy for anything that likes it to cultivate. Yeast are very dominate organisms that will punch out nearly anything in its path but if something else gets the chance sooner all is compromised.
 
BenVanned said:
Used store bought spring water. I sanitized all of my brewing hardware with a bleach and water solution, cooled the wort with an ice batch, rehydrated and pitched the yeast. I was careful not to aerate while racking to my primary, I did make an attempt to rouse the yeast I was making use of an older novelty setup so I had to use a curtain rod to stir but I did sanitize it, and had to take samples with my bottling wand for hydrometer readings which i may have failed to sanitize once or twice. This brings me to my next question.. Is it not harmful to let off that nice pocket of CO2 when taking samples? Every time I took a sample i thought "Great now there is air there".
You need to get a few more brewing "accesories". Bleach should not be a part of your brewing arsenal. You need Starsan or Iodophor if you want to continue brewing. Bleach is very difficult to completely remove, and contains chlorine, which is quite likely the cause of your problem. How did you sterilize the curtain rod? With bleach? Also, you WANT to airate your wort when you rack to your primary. It's essential for yeast health. There are too many "red lights" to really peg what went wrong with this batch. There is a huge amount of information on this forum, and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of members who will answer any question you have very quickly.

Brew_4iT said:
what do you mean by rehydrated the yeast don't need water you mean you did a starter?
Rehydrating dry brewing yeast is standard practice...
One thing I have learned back when I was growing mushrooms
You should really try to limit this activity.
 
Want to have a brew off? You can be part of our next experiment.

I don't use dry yeast so maybe you should know.

Have you ever cultivated mushrooms? It is a lot more difficult, this is like flipping pancakes compared to back in my days when I did this.

******
You know this is the actual plague to society guys with a bunch of posts on a forum that get hot headed and think they know more because of it, have an extra edge just like the fat cats and 1% er's feeling like they need to own something from territory to a thread.

Want to have a debate name it. Hell my melted brain should be superfluous compared to your rank in post numbers.
 
Well if it is going to be about a standardized system minus well follow through with it... **Sigh**
 
* Just to note I am drunk as part of being in an experiment right now. So, I am probably a bit more defensive because of it. Sorry for hijacking this thread OP. I'm sure your beer will turn out fine, and whether or not one user aids in the recovery experience will be the only sure factor in better beers for you in the future.

C
 
Its the Mild Ale Extract from Northern Brewer. I did no late additions or modify any of the basic instructions. I did end up steeping the grains a longer period of time than the instructions called for because my son woke up in a fit.
 
It's only been in the bottle for a week...did you properly chill the bottle before opening it? The tartness you are tasting could just be green beer.

Let it age for a few more weeks then give it another taste.
 
No worries on thread hijacking... that happens on forums. Next brew ill be using some upgraded equipment and a friend is giving me some extra food safe sanitizing solution from his bistro. Apparently the off flavor is not intolerable so it will get drank
 
It's only been in the bottle for a week...did you properly chill the bottle before opening it? The tartness you are tasting could just be green beer.

Let it age for a few more weeks then give it another taste.


+1


Was thinking that the priming sugar hasn't really had the chance to fully ferment for carbonation and that would lead to a slightly ciderish tartness, wouldn't it?
 
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