concerned about my IPA... any thoughts?

i bottled an IPA tonight. it was in primary for 1 week and secondary for 3 weeks. when i bottled it tonight it had a funky smell, like fruity , my girlfriend said it smelled sour. is this infection? im pretty good about sanitizing and what not. there was not visiul evidence of an infection i dont think, it was maybe a little dark, but thats it. it didnt have anything growing in it (besides yeast). do i just need to conditino it in bottles? any thoughts?

Ultimately, it's your taste buds that will tell you if it's sour or not. Did you taste any? If it's fruity, it may be the fermentation temperature. What did it ferment at?

Yeah, what the sax-a-ma-phone guy said. We need more details. Too much sugar in a kit brew will give you a fruity taste too. Let us know your recipe and the details of your brew and fermentation.

columbus IPA (extract)

9 lbs ultralight liquid malt
1.5 lbs crystal 15L

2oz magnum 60 min
2oz columbus 5 min
2 oz columbus 2 min

white labs california ale yeast

i tasted some, it tasted a little fruity, really like browned bananas. it fermented 70-75, best i can do in my apartment.

It's probably temperature related. Getting it down to 68º will help reduce esters. Are you using a carboy or bucket?

The fermentation temp was a bit high which can give a banana ester profile and the browned part could be due to some caramelization of the LME (if any of it stuck to the bottom it could have burned just enough to add a caramel taste.)

As for sour? The infection likely to cause a bit of a sour taste would be acetobacter or possibly lactobacillus. Lactobacillus is a naturally occurring bacteria that lives on grain, and you're using LME so that's not likely.

Brewsmith said:

It's probably temperature related. Getting it down to 68º will help reduce esters. Are you using a carboy or bucket?

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the primary was in glass carboy, secondary in bucket.

can you have an infection with out visually seeing it?

maboitan said:

the primary was in glass carboy, secondary in bucket.

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That's the opposite of how you should do it. Buckets can let in O2, but during primary fermentation, a lot of CO2 is beong produced, protecting it from O2, not so in secondary.

maboitan said:

can you have an infection with out visually seeing it?

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Yes, but don't worry till you taste it.

If you're having trouble keeping the temperature down try putting the carboy in a water bath. Get a bucket or some vessel, even a spare bath tub if you've got one, and put the carboy in that. You can even use frozen water bottles to keep the bath water down. Put an old t-shirt over the carboy to wick water up. The evaporation will keep the temp a few degrees below ambient. Using a fan will help even more.

Good advice already provided about temperature and preferred primary/secondary vessel. What's done is done on this batch.

Suggest that you get some more beer on, and let this one age - sure try one at 3 weeks to see how it is carbed and chilled, but consider just parking it in the back of the closet for a few months - that often improves a variety of ills, and frequently results in great beer with no trace of ills.

Don't toss it.