A sour nut brown??? Help!

[Salukibrew]

Hey fellow brew-mates,

So me and my roommate have tried to do extensive research before we started with our first batch. We eventually decided on brewing a simple Nut Brown for the first batch. We brewed then transferred to the primary and allowed it to ferment for just over two weeks. I admit we were doing a bit of bubble watching however the fermentation seemed to go off without a hitch. As we got ready to prime and bottle we got our first real look at this Nut Brown in full on light. The color seemed to be right on and the aroma had a hint of Banana or Plantain (not quite the malty aroma I was looking for but still OK). We reserved a little bit from the bottom of carboy for tasting and success! It seemed we had some type of beer however at this point not a nut brown flavor(which was still fine by me). The taste was sweeter and of course flat with some fruity notes. After bottling and aging a week we chilled a bottle to try. It seemed some of the initial sweetness was mellowing however after the second week in the bottle it seems the sweetness has led to sourness. Upon opening the bottle the carbonation almost exploded. It leads me to believe it might be infected or over primed (even though we used a normal amount of priming sugars. The color had stayed relatively the same but the sourness only seems to grow slightly. i can feel it on the sides of the tongue.

I'm not sure what I have done. I believe my sanitizing process was up to par (although I'm not counting it out as being infected). We did not have any drastic change in temp during the entire process and the problems are not getting any better. Is my beer infected or maybe still green? Being my first batch i understand I may be a bit impatient. But bottom line is it doesn't even remotely resemble a Nut Brown. Let me know what you all think. Either way I'm not giving up or dumping. Ill save it as long as it takes to see if it mellows out and already getting ready to brew a kit of Bavarian Dopplebock (Aventinus) on Sunday.

Cheers

Big Cypress Brewing

 

[Chris1272]

sound like you may have a lactobacillus infection. hold a bottle up to the light and see if there is a bit of scum floating on the top of your beer. If that is the case its not harmfull but will continue to get sour. When i had a lactobacillus I performed a tactical nuclear bleaching of my equipment and had no more problems. I hope this is not the case for you.

 

[Salukibrew]

Chris,

Thanks for the heads up. No scum on the top of beer bottle is apparent and beer looks nice and clear. However there is a small amount of what I am assuming is yeasty sediment on bottoms of every bottle. The more I read I am unsure how well the bottles were sanitized. However I feel most were done just fine. The uniformity of all the bottles being the same flavor makes me think it happened at a crucial time when all the beer would have been affected.

I also must mention that the ingredients I used may not have been the freshest. Could somewhat stale malt or hops contribute to this sour smell and flavor? Also after sanitizing bottles in bleach I then washed with regular (but high quality) tap water. Could this reinfect them right after bleach sterilizing?

Thanks,

Big Cypress Brewing

 

[Chris1272]

yes that could infect them but unlikely, I put all my bottles in the dishwasher and run it on high temperature boost(no detergent) to sanitize bottles. The heat and steam do a great job. How old are we talking on ingredients?

 

[NPK]

I saw your name and where your from and was hoping to tell you to Relax Don't Worry and Drink a Saluki Dunkeldog, but this seems urgent.

Did you take gravity readings throughout the process?

 

[Salukibrew]

Well instead of ordering a kit this first go around we decided o wing it and buy ingredients from a local liquor store that also sells home brew ingredients. While there are a few others whom I'm sure share are passion (especially it being a college town) I'm still unsure how often they purchase new malts and hops.

I also must admit that during this batch I was a bubble watcher and no SG was taken. Last time I did not have a hydrometer beaker however now I do. What is the process for testing the SG? Can I just extract the beer with the thief right from the brew kettle the. Place back in when done? Also can I just Do the same from the carboy for the final gravity? Or when I pull out the beer is it just a loss and I should dump and not try to re add beer back to batch?

Cheers,

Big Cypress Brewing

 

[Chris1272]

Ideally you want to thief off a sample when your wort as cooled and you are just about to pitch your yeast. this will be your OG. then you can take periodic samples to check your gravity readings. I would strongly recommend never returning the sample back to the batch. It is a unnecessary risk of infection for about 3oz of beer saved. Also I generally end up drinking the contents of the sample to see how the beer is developing.

 

[brewit2it]

Have you ever tasted Home Brew before? I am guessing your beer is not infected, but what you are tasting is Home Brew or Extract "twang". I would say that most home brews I've tasted, both my own and other brewers, have this flavor to some degree, and it tends to be more pronounced in low ABV, low Hopped beers like your nut brown ale.

Conditioning time, kegging, and using less or no extract helps reduce this flavor to some extent. For me fine tuning your home brewing to some degree is about getting rid of this near ubiquitous mild off flavor, and producing something that is closer to microbrew taste. If you make stouts/porters, Belgium or hefeweisens it is easy to mask this "home brew" flavor which is at least partly why these styles are much more popular with home brewers than with the general beer drinking population in my opinion.

GL and keep at it.

 

[KellyK]

Personally, I think it sounds like an infection, particularly if it is getting worse and not better and you are having increasing carbonation (although +1 to the comments you may have bottled too soon and should be checking your FG before bottling every time).

To try to fix whatever the issue may be before your next batch, can you walk us through your sanitation process? What was your chilling process? What did you use to sanitize? Any of your equipment old or recycled (ie: craigslist)? How did you sanitize your bottles? Did you make sure all the bottles were really CLEAN before you sanitized them? Remember, cleaning is different from sanitization. What did you use to bottle? What did you use to transfer?