Infected wheat beer saved by honey!

[ECUbrewer]

At least 4 months ago I brewed an extract wheat beer. After transferring to its secondary a thin film with white blotches covered the brew accompanied with a sour, bitter taste and smell. I bottled anyways hoping for the best but it never turned. I have 12 left which I NEVER though about drinking due to the sour after taste. Today I got bored and poured one with around a table spoon of warm honey. After mixing I took a gulp and the sour after taste had been nearly neutralized! If I could go back, I would have bottled with honey in addition to corn sugar. Wish I knew this about four months ago! Since then I have made the switch to all-grain.

Anyone else made a miraculous save on a old, forgotten homebrew?

 

[weirdboy]

I don't think that would work like you think it would.

The honey balances out the sour flavor because it adds sweetness. If you put the honey in there at bottling time, the yeast and/or bacteria will just eat the extra sugar, resulting in more carbonation and pretty much the same sour flavor, if not worse.

 

[Edcculus]

Did you try it before mixing in the honey? It might be that time fixed it, not the honey. In addition to what weirdboy said, adding honey plus the priming sugar could potentially lead to bottle bombs too. If you ever need to backsweeten a beer, I'd add lactose. It is an unfermentable sugar

 

[JJL]

Did you try it before mixing in the honey? It might be that time fixed it, not the honey. In addition to what weirdboy said, adding honey plus the priming sugar could potentially lead to bottle bombs too. If you ever need to backsweeten a beer, I'd add lactose. It is an unfermentable sugar

+1 to this. This was the first thing that came across my mind as well. Sometimes the yeast clean everything up. It can just take a while.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

I agree with the other posts. Adding honey, like weirdboy said, only added some sweetness to counter the acid that is giving the sour taste. I have made many sour beers on purpose and I've found that over time, the level of sourness decreases dramatically. I once had a Berliner Weisse that was extremely sour after about 4 months and after about 8 months, it was much less sour.