My beer has soured

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

yourlastchance89

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
266
Reaction score
143
But it actually tastes pretty good. Other than the taste there is no other sign of infection. I've waited almost 4 weeks to see if it was just an off flavor the yeast would clean up but it's still there. If I want to keep it, what is the proper protocol moving forward from this point?
 
I'd check the final gravity and make a judgement based on that and think just what it could be (if it is) infected with. If there is a lot of residual sugars there could be quite a lot of additional fermentation to come, though it could be very slow depending on storage temperature. This does change the safety of packaging in glass bottles especially though and I would take the decision to bottle very seriously.

If you use regularly use saison yeast or brettanomyces in your brew house and think it could be that these will get very low. A minor lactic acid bacteria infection is not that big a deal in comparison because they typically progress so slowly under the relatively harsh conditions of cold, alcoholic, hopped, low dissolved oxygen packaged beer that you might just find they are slightly over-carbonated 6-12 months down the line if you've not already drank them by this point.

It might not even be infected depending on what you've done? I've had tart character from different yeasts and recently made a mango session pale where I took 5L off prior to the dry hop to compare. The post boil pH prior to adding the mango was already 4.99 with next to no rA and as the mango made up 14% of the total extract the beer which wasn't dry hopped was quite sharp and tangy, akin to a bright fruit wine. The dry hop kind of raises the pH and the dry hopped version doesn't have this character.

Do you keg? Rock on if so. They usually have PRVs and are easy to bleed if required.
 
The final gravity has been the same for almost 3 weeks now. I've looked up posts related to the strain and style. There were a few on here who seemed to have the same problem I did, however there's went away after aging it out for a few weeks, mine hasn't, and it definitely tastes like a sour beer. It was a Dunkelweizen. OG was 1.060 and FG is 1.010. I used Wyeast 3068.
I usually keg, but if it's infected I don't know if it's wiser to keg or bottle in terms of what equipment is more prudent for this beer to come in contact with? Also what do I do if it is soured. Don't sour beers age out for like 50 years?
 
I’ve had some of those over the years. Usually I just pour the beer, dip a chopstick in the beer, then into a box of baking soda, swirl chopstick in beer. Whatever stuck to the chopstick is usually enough to neutralize the acid.
 
yourlastchance89,
did your fermenter leak oxygen in? What made it sour? I think I would drink it if it did not taste too bad.
 
I don't know if there is much you can do at this point. I guess you could either dump it or if it tastes good, I'd package it up. I guess the more concerning thing is how did the infection happen?
 
Back
Top