First brew - Bit sour and chemical taste

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Dickieuk

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Jul 26, 2016
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Hello

Just opened a bottle from my first ever batch. Tssszech! ahhhhh. What a satisfying noise that first bottle makes!

It's better than I thought but I'm a little "half-full" at the best of times so that was to be expected. It's certainly drinkable.

There are problems though and it'd be good to have your opinions of which of the many inevitable mistakes I made caused them or is the most likely cause of them.

Problems:
- Slightly sour taste.
- Initially very fizzy then slightly flat
- slightly chemically taste at the end

(My main) Mistakes:
- It's been hot in London the last few weeks and my fermenting beer went from 24C to 26C for two days then dropped back down to 24C.
- Once bottled it's sat in the shed which is hot in the day and about average 16C at night.
- I sprayed "None rince" sanitiser into each bottle, tipped it out then filled the bottles, perhaps there was too much left in there?

The beer:
- Muntons American IPA
- 2 weeks fermentation
- Bottled 4 days ago, tried today!

Note:
I didn't have enough bottles to bottle it all so put some in a pressurised barrel that I have. That beer doesn't have the chemical taste.

Thanks in advance for any responses.
 
only bottled 4 days ago - thats the problem. While there might be some C02, it hasn't had time to saturate the beer. I'd say the earliest a beer is ready is after about 10 days, but I usually give them at least 2 weeks for something like an IPA that drinks better fresh. Heavier beers like stouts I try to give at least 4 weeks.
 
I agree w/ Pariah--you're too soon. Give it time to condition in the bottle and allow the yeast to clean up.

You also don't say what yeast you're using--it might be too warm for the yeast, depending on what you're trying to achieve.

Let it go two more weeks and try another.
 
Thanks chaps, that's exactly what I needed to know. I suspected that I may be a little early to judge.

Will try again in 7 days.

Thanks again.
 
It's been a REALLY long time since I tried one after just a few days in the bottle, but I don't remember it tasting sour. Does anybody know if there is a correlation there?
 
It's been a REALLY long time since I tried one after just a few days in the bottle, but I don't remember it tasting sour. Does anybody know if there is a correlation there?

Yup, it shouldn't taste sour. Under carbonated, flat, but still good.
 
First batch has come and gone. After two weeks conditioning it tasted great. Chemical taste and sourness gone.

Thanks for your help.
 
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