Stout help

[rquinonez]

I just sampled my milk stout after 5 days of active fermentation and I dont know what to think. Ive been obsessing over how many ways I couldve contaminated the beer. It doesnt smell sour but when tasting it it has a mildly sour taste at first but is then overshadowed by the dark grains chocolate and coffee flavors. What should I expect?
Thanks!

 

[flars]

You may be tasting the yeast. Take a SG reading about day 10. I'm sure the SG sample will taste a lot different. Give your stout plenty of time in the primary to finish.

 

[andrewf1985]

5 days is too early to make any decision. Leave it 3-4 weeks, taste it at bottling or kegging and make your decision then. Theres loads of bi products from fermentation still in the beer. It should clean up. Once packaged, leave it a few months again for the flavours to develop and blend.

I had my penultimate bottle of a porter i made late 2015 recently and wish id saved more of it. Everything was more balanced and just a nicer drink. I cant wait for the last bottle

 

[rquinonez]

Somewhere I read that milk stouts shouldnt be stored too long because the lactose goes sour. Is that true?

 

[Heineken]

Rdwhahb!

 

[andrewf1985]

My recipe has about 200g of milk lactose and theres no hint or sourness after this long. Never heard that 1 though

 

[jd1984]

I brewed a milk stout a few months back and left it in the primary for 3 weeks. At bottling I wasn't sure it was going to be good. At 1 month in bottles, it was decent. At 6 weeks it was really good. At 3 months it was almost gone and I wish I would've saved more. The longer it has gone, the better it is and many people that have brewed the same recipe have said it's at its best at 6 months to a year post bottling. I have a six pack waiting for me down the road.

Main point, don't rush judgement on that beer. They benefit from time and a couple days into fermentation won't tell you much about the end product.

 

[RM-MN]

I brewed a milk stout a few months back and left it in the primary for 3 weeks. At bottling I wasn't sure it was going to be good. At 1 month in bottles, it was decent. At 6 weeks it was really good. At 3 months it was almost gone and I wish I would've saved more. The longer it has gone, the better it is and many people that have brewed the same recipe have said it's at its best at 6 months to a year post bottling. I have a six pack waiting for me down the road.

Main point, don't rush judgement on that beer. They benefit from time and a couple days into fermentation won't tell you much about the end product.

Try to save at least one bottle until year 2 is up. I think you'll wish you had saved them all that long.

All beers go through a process of maturing. Some mature quickly like a light color, low alcohol wheat beer. Some take a long time to mature like a higher alcohol stout. The higher the alcohol and darker the beer, the longer they take to mature. IPA's put one in a quandary because the underlying beer needs time to mature but as it sits in the bottle maturing the hop aroma that we long for begins to fade.

 

[microbusbrewery]

Somewhere I read that milk stouts shouldnt be stored too long because the lactose goes sour. Is that true?

No, not true. As long as you have good sanitation practices and you haven't introduced anything along the way, they'll last as long as any other beer.

 

[nobadays]

I