Hail mary nothing to lose

[mfitz77]

had a lager infected with acetobacter(spontaneously) fairly sour. plan one....dump it....plan two...and this is where the question lies

hit it with- 2 L fresh wort
-1 lb ea raspberries and currents...from garden
-1 pkg wyeast 3789 trappist blend
-1 oz hallaurtau


and let it sit for a couple months


guesses? Predictions?

 

[hercher]

My (fortunately limited) experience with infected beers is that they just get worse over time. Adding fresh wort and the berries will give the acetobacterium more to feed off of, and 1 pkg of Trappist yeast won't be able to effectively compete.

I'd go with plan 1, regrettably.

 

[smokinghole]

If you can't control the oxygen ingress which will make more vinegar, I would add high gravity wort to make about an 8%-9% beer. Then let it turn to vinegar. Homemade malt vinegar rocks. I made some this past summer, intentionally, and it's awesome. It just takes a while to finish up, and it can smell at certain points. Around the 4 month mark mine smelled hardcore like acetone. You need it to be like 8-9% in order to make about 5% acidity. It's not a 1:1 alcohol percentage to acid percentage conversion.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

What made you determine it was acetobacter?

 

[Homebrewtastic]

To add to what smokinghole posted acetobacter needs oxygen to do it's job. That being said you could place in a glass carboy and make sure there is very little headspace for little O2 and that should keep the acetobacter character from getting out of control. If you're hoping to turn this into a true sour I would go ahead and pitch some lacto at the same time you add the fruit to get it more in the realm of a psuedo Belgian sour. And then age it a year.

I say go for it. Worst case you're out a few pounds of fruit.

 

[Pivzavod]

I tend to agree with hercher. Once the infection starts at fermenting or room temperature it usually grows extremely quick and taste becomes unbearable with further aging.

I am currently drinking a beer that had airborne infection. I kegged it and pressurized it early into the infection. I had 4/10 sour taste for the first week I started drinking it after a week it became 1/10. First tastings (12/31/11) displayed lemongrass flavor which went nicely with the sourness from the bacteria. Over the next few days sourness increased and completely overtook lemongrass. Now its less sour but lemongrass is not coming thru. If I would've kept the keg at room temperature for a few days the bacteria would grow at a very fast rate (from previous encounters with same variety).

PS. My airborne infections were in plastic, not glass.

 

[Calder]

Dump it. It is not worth pouring extra expense and effort in a bad beer.

No matter what you do to it; even if, in the unlikely event, you produce a half decent beer, you will always be able to taste the vinegar.

 

[SLI]

Why not try to pasteurize it and then pitch new bugs?

 

[JacobS]

Vinegar freezes @ 28f..... So you could just freeze distill your whole batch.... down to the alcohol...

 

[smokinghole]

Don't dump it. Up the abv and make vinegar with at least some of it. You will thank me if you ever use vinegar. Plus friends like it!