Is it time to toss my kettle sour, or should I ride this one out?

[Juno_Malone]

Was planning on brewing a gose...this is my second time kettle-souring; first time went great. This time I accidentally skipped the step of bringing the wort to a boil after mashing/sparging, which I think is where my trouble began. Mashed at 150, sparged at 175, collected 7.2gal of wort in my kettle and let it cool to 110F. Pitched a 4cup 1.040 starter with 8 Swanson Lactobacillus plantarum capsules that had been going for a couple days. Within 12 hours, there was a super thick goopy white layer on top of my wort - I freaked out and skimmed it all off, realizing later that it may have just been a weird Lacto pellicle. Then, another ~6 hours later, something else took hold - looked like a wild yeast (krausen), but it smelled terrible. Not the nice pleasant smell I had gotten from the other kettle sour I did last year. After 6 hours of that krausen and the horrible smell, I decided to bring it to a boil, cool, and re-pitch some more plantarum caps to try and salvage the batch. After cooling from the boil, I checked the pH - 4.2. I took a sample, and it tasted...okay? Slightly tart, but it still smelled pretty bad. I'm now at ~24 hours after pitching the second round, and the wort still smells pretty nasty. I'm thinking that I should toss this batch before I invest more time and money in it; what do you guys think? Thanks!

 

[RPh_Guy]

This time I accidentally skipped the step of bringing the wort to a boil after mashing/sparging, which I think is where my trouble began.

That's my guess too.

I'm now at ~24 hours after pitching the second round, and the wort still smells pretty nasty. I'm thinking that I should toss this batch before I invest more time and money in it; what do you guys think?

That's what I would do. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

Just FYI, you always have the option to co-sour with L. plantarum in unhopped beer (pitch Lacto with the yeast, ferment at 65°F+). Plantarum is too hop sensitive to contaminate clean batches (and it's really not hard to kill) so there's actually less risk with this process.

Bummer about the batch.