All Grain IPA Bad Batch Advice

[Rupes]

Hi folks,

I brewed a batch of Calling Bird English IPA for the holidays ( Calling Bird India Pale Ale Recipe | Craft Beer & Brewing (beerandbrewing.com) )

I kegged and carbonated it over the weekend however, when I went to taste test it, it has a very sour unpleasant aftertaste, it also has very poor clarity.

I've brewed this recipe several times with huge success however, I am trying to figure out why this batch came out badly.

My OG was 1.056 and final gravity was 1.010. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly using a BIAB method.

It was fermented around 65f for the first week, I then added dry hops and transferred to my garage, for the last 5 days. The only thing I can think of is that the temperature in the garage fluctuated quite a lot; we had some 30f nights and 65f days. Do you think this could be the cause?

I brewed 10 gallons total, 2 x 5 gallon fermenters. One was kegged and the other is still in the fermenter. Is there anyway to save this last 5 gallons and make it drinkable?

Thanks so much!

 

[IslandLizard]

Welcome to HBT!

it has a very sour unpleasant aftertaste, it also has very poor clarity.

Is it possible the beer got infected? Sourness is an indicator of infection, Lactobacillus for example, or a wild yeast. Aside from being sour, any other flavors or aromas that come to mind?

Suspended yeast can also cause weird off-flavors. WY1007 is powdery, a slow flocculator, hence the cloudiness.

How is your sanitation? Any spigots on your fermenters? They can harbor bugs in between the moving parts, and (rubber) seals.

It having an FG of 1.010 points that it attenuated as to be expected during the week. Although storing it cooler for dry hopping is very fine, the beer won't condition much under 60-65F, even less so if it chilled down in the 40s or 30s, which makes most yeast go dormant and precipitate out. Could it be "green beer" you're tasting?

From WYeast's website:
This powdery strain results in yeast that remains in suspension post fermentation.

TEMPERATURE RANGE:
55 - 68°F

 

[jdauria]

The beer was probably mostly done fermenting after the first week, so the garage temp fluctuation should not be an issue that much, though it's definitely better to keeps temps constant. Can I assume you put in the garage to to cold crash during cold nights? As for your clarity issue, two things, one is that dry hopped beers tend to be cloudier than non dry hopped and a good cold cold crash would help drop all the particles out. Also, usually few couple pours from keg can be cloudy due to sediment in keg.

As for the sour after taste. no way for us to tell if you had an infection...but where you say you kegged and carbonated it and then tasted all over just this weekend, it leads me to a few possibilities....the first is that any dry hopped beer, but more so in NEIPAs, can have what is know as hop burn, so that first few pours from keg will not taste the best. It's best to give the beer a week or two. The second thought is you carbonated by cranking pressure up high, so you are getting a lot of carbonic acid from the CO2 combined with maybe hop burn. The third thought is that the first couple pours from the keg, depending on how careful you were when you transferred, can have yeast and trub in it, that stuff doesn't taste great.

 

[hotbeer]

Was it fully carbonated when you tasted it? If not, then maybe some other flavor notes are making you think sour but it's not. Wait till it's fully carb'd and taste again.

If it was carbonated fully, then just let it condition and try it periodically and see if it improves or not.

If you haven't done anything with the other in the fermenter still, then leave it alone for another week and maybe it'll clean up some.

 

[eric19312]

If you are using an airlock the fluctuating temperatures in the garage could easily of resulted in the headspace "breathing" in oxygen every night as the temperature dropped.

Perhaps the temperature fluctuations are also resuspending the yeast. That could explain the cloudy appearance and sour flavors.

 

[dan46nbrew]

If it ends up being a lacto infection could just say you made a sour IPA?

 

[Rupes]

Thanks for all your reply's.

• The beer didn't visibly look infected and I tried to be as sanitary as I could during all stages (although I'm not ruling this out).
• @jdauria you are correct that I moved it to the garage to attempt a cold crash but the whether was not in my favor and instead it just got mildly colder for a night or two.
• Carbonation - I forced carbed over 24 hours, initially at 40psi then recued down to 20psi for the 24 hour period.

My plan (in the vein hope of having some drinkable beer for Christmas)

I now have a spare fridge where I can cold crash properly; so I am going to cold crash the unopened fermentation bucket (approx. 3 weeks since brew day) and see if that one is any better.

Any other tips are greatly appreciated.

 

[IslandLizard]

so I cam going to cold crash the unopened fermentation bucket

I recommend preventing air/O2 from going inside the fermenter while cold crashing, and oxidizing your hoppy beer.

For example, attach a mylar (party) balloon, filled with CO2, on your airlock stem, so any suck back will be CO2, not air.

 

[Bobby_M]

Basically two things happened in the garage. When the temp dropped at night, the yeast all stopped what they were busy doing (cleaning up fermentation byproducts). At the same time the negative pressure sucked oxygen in. As the temps rose and fell over and over, you were "breathing" new oxygen in. I think you probably have Acetaldehyde and oxidation on your hands.