Belgian Tripel Smells Like Sour Milk

[bellinmi88]

I made a Belgian Tripel using Wyeast 1388. It has been in the Primary for 3 weeks at about 71 degrees. After 2 weeks I used a heating pad to increase the temp to 80 degrees after the activity settled.

I just racked into secondary and it smells sour and tasted sour. There is not as much yeast cake on the bottom as I would have suspected.

Did i ruin this batch with the heating pad? I don't even smell alcohol which for a Belgian Tripel I would think I would!!

What should I do?

 

[baderbrau]

sounds like a bacterial infection to me....

 

[aryoung1980]

I brewed a batch of Belgian Tripel recently and maybe this advice may help you. I was worried that my gravity was too high after the primary fermentation. A friend suggested pitching a lager yeast and said that along with lowering my terminal gravity it would clean up any off-flavors. If you can get your temps into the 50s, maybe the lager yeast could clear out the sourness.

 

[jaredkent]

I just brewed a Belgian Tripel as well, I used White Labs Abbey Ale. Same characteristics, a very sour, funky smelling fermentation. I just chalked it up to being typical of belgian yeast. I just reracked it into secondary on friday, and tasting it as well I was blown away by how much the beer didn't taste like that yeast aroma. The beer had those mellow, sweet, typical flavor characteristics of a belgian tripel.

So unless your beer taste horrible and sour, I wouldn't worry about the yeast. Let it do it's thing.

 

[bellinmi88]

I brewed a batch of Belgian Tripel recently and maybe this advice may help you. I was worried that my gravity was too high after the primary fermentation. A friend suggested pitching a lager yeast and said that along with lowering my terminal gravity it would clean up any off-flavors. If you can get your temps into the 50s, maybe the lager yeast could clear out the sourness.

I like this idea with using a Lager Yeast...I think that would be a great last resort if a couple weeks in a secondary doesn't clear up any of the off aromas or smells.

What about the lack of alcohol in the aroma, usually when I rack into a secondary the alcohol is the first thing I notice?

I did not measure the gravity, maybe I should.

 

[Rushis]

Fermentation is ugly, especially with many belgian yeast strains. Don't worry it's completely normal.

Belgian strongs can take months to mellow and age properly. If the SG reading is constant, bottle it and see what happens in 4 months.

 

[bellinmi88]

Thanks Rushis....I was hoping for a response like that.

I will bottle it once the gravity is holding and then forget about it!

 

[PicKeM]

Well, if you can remember a few years back, how'd it turn out?

I presently have a New Belgium Brewery tripel clone in the primary and there is a sour apple smell coming out the vigorously bubbling airlock. Also, the ambient temperature is up around 28C after 36 hours in the primary. I contemplated making efforts to cool it, but thought differently after this article: https://byo.com/stories/item/636-fermenting-belgian-style-beers

 

[serum]

When I first used a Belgian yeast my starter smelled a little like apple juice but it was fine. Just wait it out and see what happens. Not sure what yeast you're using but this was with Wyeast 3522 / WLP550.

 

[sputnam]

i used 1214 for a tripel, it smelled awful at bottling. 6 months later, I have good beer.

 

[PicKeM]

i used 1214 for a tripel, it smelled awful at bottling. 6 months later, I have good beer.

Yeah, I am also using Wyeast 1214 for my tripel. I'm getting some banana and a lot of sour apple smells, but it sounds like the latter will condition out nicely. From my one-time experience here, it seems like 1214 gets going slowly, but then starts replicating and eating ferociously. My airlock was bubbling so rapidly that it was blowing the water out, and I had to refill the airlock every 6-8 hours.

After saying that I wasn't going to do anything when the temperature of the wort hit 28*C, I thought better of it and placed the fermenter in a tub of cold water. It's now been sitting at about 23*C since.