Did I ruin my wort???

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Kozwald

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I had efficiency issues yesterday so I was going to go to my LHBS and buy some LME to add to the wort. I left the liquid in my kettle on the stove overnight. Today when I opened the cover the wort was foamy with a sweet pungent smell.
Is it a goner?? Hopefully the picture is attached.

IMG_3131.JPG
 
Well it's collecting nasties. You really should have just accepted the low OG and remember to keep DME on hand just in case next time.
Now, I don't know if you can boil out the taste. You can boil out the nasties but maybe not the taste. If it's like that I'd probably dump it but more experienced minds may know better.
 
I've learned not to throw my mistakes down the drain. All my beers have turned out really awesome or just ok. Never bad. Even the one stout I made with one pound of molasses turned out awesome, over a year later. For the first few months, the only good that came out of the mole-ass beer was when it was boiled down and turned into wicked bbq sauce.

I vote to keep the beer.
 
Well, if you have an extra fermentation bucket why not boil it again to pasterurize it and kill off any extra nasties and then pitch a yeast in it. Worse case is you're out $5 for yeast best case is you get an interesting sour lambic beer out of it.
 
Well, if you have an extra fermentation bucket why not boil it again to pasterurize it and kill off any extra nasties and then pitch a yeast in it. Worse case is you're out $5 for yeast best case is you get an interesting sour lambic beer out of it.

I agree why not finish it you won't be out anything but yeast at this point if it sucks, but if you dump it you are out the whole batch of ingredients and get no beer and that's a sad sad thing:(
 
How can you tell?

I was just pulling your leg. You can't tell by looking. Odds are it is ruined,though, if it started fermenting with wild yeast and bacteria. No reason to tie up a fermenter and waste perfectly good extract on it. Just cut your losses and dump it.
On the other hand, if you are fond of funk this might be your favorite beer ever. Don't get your hopes up.
 
I decided to just dump it and start over. I was thinking about keeping it to see what would happen, but then my wife came home and smelled what it was doing to the kitchen. That almost ended my brewing privileges in the house.

I'll be heading to the store tonight for more ingredients. I still have the yeast starter chilling so I don't want to waste that as well.

That's what I like about brewing, you learn something new every day.
 
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