Free beer for the best idea!

[Tomerwt]

Hey guys,

I've been running a brewing club for about a year now, which is awesome!

However, we ran in to a problem with our most recent batch and could do with some opinions! I'll explain the problem, and the person who can give us the best solution will receive a bottle by mail when it's done!

Our aim was to brew a 30L batch of Belgian double. We used mostly pale and pilsner malts and a few speciality grains such as chocolate, topped off with a load of liquid candy sugar. We used home cultivated Westmalle yeast, which is probably the reason for our problem. Although we had previous successes with carefully home cultivated yeast, the batch got infected.

The batch is about three months old, is at about 6.5% vol. and has been transferred to a secondary carboy about two weeks ago. It's done fermenting and looks beautiful. But when we tooka taste sample it was nothing like what we were expecting. It tasted more like a lambic like Geuze than like a double. It's not disgusting, but has a very sour touch to it.

We believe every batch can be fixed and are not planning to chuck it. But we might need some help. Could time get rid of this eye-twitching sourness? Should we boil it, get more sugars in there and re-pitch with new yeast? Any ideas are welcome, we don't mind ending up with something different to what we aimed for, as long as it doesn't taste like vinegar.

 

[ColoHox]

If vinegar is what you are tasting, it will not go away. An Acetobacter infection is the end of the road, unless you are making malt vinegar. All the ethanol in your beer will eventually be converted to acetic acid, increasing the sourness. And, unfortunately, finding the actual source of infection is very difficult.

Boiling and adding more sugar and yeast to a contaminated batch would be more work than just making a new batch with reliable yeast.

My solution: toss it (unless you don't mind a dubbel-kombucha) and make a new batch with reliable yeast and a very sanitized process.

 

[Indytruks138]

Throw in a vial or two of brett yeast, and forget about it for 6 months, no other chance of "saving" it. And this save would only possibly give you a better sour than you already have. As stated above, the sour won't be going away, only getting stronger.

 

[Homercidal]

It's already too late. I'd dump it and better luck next time. But then I hate sour beers.

 

[Setesh]

 

[ehope411]

If you're leaning towards dumping it, you might as well try adding something sweet to secondary to see how/if it makes the sour more tolerable. If it's a Dubbel, maybe some figs or plums? I'm enjoying a sour with spicy cheese and it's pretty tasty. What do you have to lose at this point?

 

[Tomerwt]

Thanks for the opinions guys!

We'll probably 'experiment' along with it.. as ehope411 says.. we have nothing to lose..

My crew is going to be pretty disappointed about this, but after a few very successful batches this is a good reminder to us all, to the importance of brewers hygiene.

 

[Diaperload]

We made a bbl of mead a few years ago. We fermented it in the garage and over the winter it had gotten too cold to continue fermenting. We kinda forgot about it also.

Somewhere along the line it turned to vinegar. Instead of tossing it, we bottled it up and gave it away as a "specialty vinegar." People LOVED it. I used a few gallons of it to make cole slaw. Was pretty good.

The word got out on our messed up batch. People started stopping by requesting a bottle.

Turns out we could actually sell this stuff legally since it's not beer or wine anymore. We never did, but the gears are still turning.

The one bad aspect was the cleaning. Our club removed EVERYTHING from the brew area to outside for a good cleaning/scrubbing/sanitizing. Instead of brewing that day, it was only cleaning.

Not sure if that helps at all, but if it's vinegar you have you might want to see if it's good on a salad?

 

[billl]

If you boil it, you'll just drive all the alcohol off.

You can pasturize it to kill any microbes. That will stop it from becoming more sour, but i won't eliminate the current sourness.

From there, you could blend with a non-sour beer. You could also try backsweetening with some fruit flavor and then just keeping it at serving temp to prevent any future fermentation.

 

[feinbera]

If it's sour but not vinegary, you could have lactobacillus or pediococcus in there, which will not eventually turn it into vinegar.

Me, I'd probably just sit on it, let it age a few months, see what flavors develop -- unless everybody involved hates sours? Maybe rack a couple gallons off onto fruit, what the hey, you've already got the stuff and you're not gonna turn it back into a dubbel no matter what you do.

 

[passedpawn]

It would be nice if your accidentally infected beer tasted great, but that doesn't usually happen. So, I'd be dumping.

If you know anyone who distills, that is one potential use for it.

 

[reverendj1]

Contrary to what everyone says, sourness can go away. I think it depends on what is causing it. I had a batch that was extremely sour at bottling. Three weeks later it was still really sour. A few weeks after that the sourness subsided a little and now (a couple months later) it has just a slight sour/tart note to it and actually tastes pretty good. Now, if yours has been sitting three months already, it may not be the same as mine, but it is possible for sourness to fade.