Asking for second opinion on infection

[BrewChem]

Hey... I think I have an infected Hefe but not entirely convinced. Ive been brewing all grain for several years and have only had one batch that was a no-brainer dump but this one, I'm not sure.

I brewed a typical Hefe 5 gal recipe with 60/40 wheat/barley, oxygenated with O2 and used WLP300 from a 1liter starter.

Primary fermentation was held at 65F in a fermentation chamber and it took off within the first 8 hours (blow-off tubes are my friend...!). Everything calmed down after about 4 days as the gravity had gone from 1.056 to 1.018... so far, so good..

I maintained 65F and could still hear the 'bloop-bloop' sound of bubbles from the blowoff tube inside the chamber... ok... the yeast are cleaning up... let it ride...

After 10 days, I could still hear bubbles and took a gravity... 1.015... and noticed that there were still a head on the beer in the carboy but the bubbles didn't 'look normal'.... they were large and the film of the bubbles look more like an opaque skin. I tried to get a photo but couldn't get the resolution to show what I'm talking about.

I turned off the chiller and let it free-rise to about 70 and took gravity readings every 3-4 days. Over the last two weeks, it continues to fall and is at 1.011.

The gravity samples taste like banana and clove (as they should) but leaves a sour/tart/tingly feeling on your tongue in the aftertaste.

I'm leaning toward flushing it but wanted a second or eighth opinion .... whaddya think..?

 

[hercher]

Continue to let it ride. Without knowing your recipe and brew process, I'm thinking it should get below 1.011. I had a saison that took over a month to ferment out recently, and it turned out good. You may have a little acetaldehyde, which could give the tartness you describe, but I would still wait. It's way to early to dump.