Newbie: New Brew + Sour Taste

[Yeeee]

Hi. This is very first time trying to home brew.

I've followed the coopers receipe:

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/how-to-brew/light/zephyr-light

I was hoping to make a light beer.

I'm basically using the fermenting kit which you buy from coopers. I'm up to my 4th day in the fermenter, but my brew tastes kinda sour when I try it. It's not very alcoholic as it's a light batch, but it's kinda sour. (In comparison to the commercial stuff which has a much cleaner and crisper taste)

I've struggled to keep the temp constant at 20c. It's usually between 18-26 degrees, using a mixture of blankets (wrapping the fermenter) to keep the fermenter warm when it's cold, and a heat pad (placed underneath the fermenter). But it seems to keep around the 22-24 degree mark most of the time. Really hard to regulate.

The coopers kit doesn't come with an airlock, just a lid that you put over a big plastic fermenter. Which I've opened 1-2 times per day (for roughly 15-30 seconds each time) to see how it was going. It really smelt on days 2-3, but doesn't seem to smell much now. (sour smell say in the past)

The question is, since it's tastes a bit sour. Should I chuck it out?? And start again?? Or will this improve over time? Or should I keep going?

It says : " Bottle when specific gravity has reached 1.006 (or two readings the same over 24 hours). " on the coopers receipe. On day 3, I got a reading of 1.003 on the hydrometer & 0.997 today (day 4). How close am I to being ready to bottle? Or should I just chuck it out since it tastes a little sour.

Since the fermenter was new & straight out of the box, I didn't sanitize it using odourless household bleach before using it. It just rinsed it out with really hot water. Could this be my problem? I did sanitize the stainless steel pot I used to boil my original 2 litres of water though using household bleach.

Please let me know your thoughts. I'm new to this, and I'm loving it so far. Just dunno why my batch seems kinda sour?

Thanks!

 

[ACbrewer]

Wait at least until it is finished and ready to bottle according to the instructions.

Initially Yeast drops the PH of your beer as an anti competative measure, so the beer will develop a bit of sour taste. Over time this will be masked by the other flavors the yeast produces. I followed the flavor progress of one of my beers and this happened right around day 3 or 4. I held on to it, and the beer turned out very nice. It also got me to investigate the beer/yeast life cycle a bit more to understand what flavors I might taste when.

If the Beer is really infected, you will be able to toss it later as much as earrlier. The generall advice on the forum is to 'wait a bit longer' 4 days is to short to have made a deceission. Wait until a minimum of 21 days from yeast pitch before making any sort of call about discarding. Most here will let their beer go at least this long in the fermentor.

Let us know how it is in a couple of weeks, and welcome.

EDIT: For some reason I missed that you didn't sanatize your fermentor - yes this could be a problem. Since it is new, I guess there would be less wild yeast on it, but there will still be some, even with a hot water wash. 20 mins in boiling water for a sanitation (99.999% bacteria killed). The most important thing for a beginning (and not so new) brewer is sanitation. From what you've described, an infection is likely, and it is probably a loss.

Get your hands on some idaphor or star san and use those products to sanitize. While bleach is cheap and works, it needs a rinse and takes longer than either of those 2 products.

 

[AR-Josh]

If you didn't sanitise then you most likely have problems.

I would wait it out regardless. Test it again in a week to see if the flavour has changed. In the meantime, I'd get another fermentor, sanitiser, and do another one. Then at least if the first is bad you have the second to look forward to.

 

[Lost]

The single most important thing in beer quality is sanitation! All grain vs. extract, keg vs. bottle, all that is moot if your sanitation is poor. If it's sour then you've got an infection. That doesn't mean it's not safe to drink - some styles are meant to be sour. But it may mean that it won't taste good and usually the sourness will worsen overtime as the infection progresses. Aging is good for beer and helps the flavor smooth out a lot but aging will never make an infection induced off flavor go away.

If it's drinkable then drink it now before it gets worse. But be warned, if you bottle it the infection could continue to ferment your beer past the point where the yeast would and you may end up with bottle bombs. You have been warned.

Don't bother with bleach, it's a pain and will contribute phenolic off flavors if you're not careful. Buy a bottle of starsan, it's maybe 10 bucks and will make gallons and gallons of no rinse sanitizer that will not contribute off flavors.


Here's where you went wrong:
1. You didn't use Starsan

2. Anything pre-boil (including the pot) doesn't need to be sanitized because it will be boiled. Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING that contacts your beer after the boil MUST BE SANITIZED. This includes everything from thermometers to the buckets or carboys you use to ferment in. Spray or soak EVERYTHING in STARSAN. Wash your hands and starsan them before you begin touching or handling the equipment you intend to use for siphoning or bottling. The fact that the equipment is new just means that you haven't had your grubby hands all over it, but who knows what went on at the factory and packing plant.

3. Leave it alone. Every time you open the lid you let contaminants in. If you want to watch it then get a glass carboy. Your breath could carry droplets of saliva full of lactobacillus which will sour beer so even breathing on the beer is a bad idea.

4. What do you mean there's no air lock? While some successfully do "open fermentations" I would not suggest that for a beginner. Get a bucket with a sealed o-ring lid or a carboy with a rubber stopper and use an airlock filled with starsan.

 

[paulster2626]

Doesn't this seem like a troll acct. to anyone else? I'm new here, but not new to the internets...

In any case, don't use bleach on stainless steel.

 

[Hefanatic]

Doesn't this seem like a troll acct. to anyone else? I'm new here, but not new to the internets...

In any case, don't use bleach on stainless steel.

It is a little strange....

Either way, with gravity that low and considering the other things you mentioned it sounds like an infection. No good.

 

[Yeeee]

4. What do you mean there's no air lock? While some successfully do "open fermentations" I would not suggest that for a beginner. Get a bucket with a sealed o-ring lid or a carboy with a rubber stopper and use an airlock filled with starsan.

Thank you for all of your very useful information.

http://www.makebeer.net/Portals/0/images/Blog Pictures/SparklingAle1.jpg

This is the coopers fermenter that we buy at our local department stores in Sydney. It doesn't have an airlock. Just a lid that you put on the fermenter. It doesn't 'click' say, (have an airtight seal)........ I bought the pack as a 'spur of the moment' thing. I think I should of found this forum first before purchasing my kit........And ask you guys what equipment I should buy.....

I'll take your advice on the bucket with sealed o-ring lid or carboy. I'm leaning more towards a glass carboy. But are they really hard to clean say, due to the narrow neck at the top?

And yes, I'll buy some of that starsan stuff that most of you recommend so highly.......

 

[Yeeee]

I've attached a copy of a photo of my brew. Don't know if this helps you tell if it's infected?







----------------

 

[emjay]

It actually looks fine

 

[Yeeee]

Thanks for that. It's only day 5, so I'll leave it least 21 days before bottling as suggested by on of the senior members.

Lost: In the photo above..... You can see it's just a huge plastic bucket, and it comes with a lid (That's my fermenter). I've noticed some fermenters 'snap in shut' with an airlock say. eg. a carboy with a rubber stopper. Guess I can get one of those for my 2nd or 3rd fermenter. So I can ferment more stuff all in one go. Yeah, I'll go get some of that starsan stuff. Btw, are the carboy's quite hard to clean due to the narrow top?? Or does starsan and hot water take care of it all?

 

[emjay]

StarSan doesn't clean... it sanitizes. The difference is that cleaning gets rid of all grime, residue, etc, whereas sanitizing kills the *vast majority* (generally greater than 99%) of microorganisms, some of which would otherwise infect your beer (known as beer-spoilers). If you don't thoroughly clean your equipment before sanitizing, the dirty spots provide places for these beer-spoilers to hide from the sanitizer, so it's important to clean BEFORE sanitizing. A good sanitizer like StarSan doesn't need to be rinsed, which is ideal because sanitizers only work as long as they're in contact with the surface.

But even if this was an infection, 5 days is kind of too quick for it to noticeably sour the beer. Heck, 5 days is DEFINITELY too quick to make any judgments about your beer. But every time you take the lid off to look, you're giving infective microbes another opportunity to swoop in. If you can fight the urge to keep peeking at your beer, you're best off just sticking the fermentor in a cool dark place, and ignoring it for about a month. Hence the saying around here, "RDWHAHB" - Relax, Don't Worry, Have A HomeBrew!

That particular phrase was coined by a legendary author, Charlie Papazian, whose book people might recommend to anybody who's just starting off, but I would actually discourage it, as it's become pretty outdated. I strongly recommend buying John Palmer's "How to Brew", and spend your idle time reading it instead of checking out your beer. And if you STILL have time, then I'd also strongly recommend buying some more supplies and making another batch or two - if you're looking at about 6-8 weeks for a beer to be drinkable, you definitely want to get a head start on future batches!

Ignore the people hassling you about airlocks or whatever. The fermentors you mentioned seeing are by far the most common, so many people aren't familiar with the kind you have. The Cooper's fermentors work just fine.

But don't expect your beer to taste clean and crisp like the commercial beers you're trying to emulate. Even ignoring the fact that most Coopers kits - even the lagers - come with ale yeast (because their target market isn't really the kind that has invested in the temperature control necessary for lager strains), you still don't stand a chance in hell when you're brewing at those temperatures. Most people will tell you that high temperatures will increase esters (fruity taste) and fusels (hot alcohol/solvent taste), but going too high for the strain will also dramatically increase the concentration of acetaldehyde, which often has a green apple or even vinegary taste and smell, and is often described as sour. Funnily enough, acetaldehyde is also often a big indication that the beer is too young to drink!

But proper temperature control is one of the most critical aspects to producing a great brew - for example, I use a chest freezer hooked up to a temperature controller, which is set up to monitor and maintain the temperature of the beer itself, which can exceed the temperature of the air around it by up to 5°C, and sometimes even more. So depending on how you measured the temperature, 26° degrees can be more like 31°C (that's about 88°F!), which is *insanely* hot, and there's really only one yeast strain I'd ever be comfortable fermenting at that temp. Even if it was "just" 26° (about 79°F), that's still way too warm for even the vast majority of ALE strains (other than various Belgian yeast strains and beer styles), so you can forget about producing something as crisp as a commercial lager, which use lager strains fermented at temperatures like 7°C (and then "lagered" very near, or even below 0°). You CAN get a nice crispness even with ALE yeast from various "hybrid" styles, but this requires pretty cool temps (I'd say about 13°C *max*), and even then, you have to be very choosy about the yeast strain you use, as many ale strains are ill-suited to such cool temps.

Don't let that discourage you though - just don't expect to be brewing something as clean and crisp as a commercial lager with just a starter kit - and keep in mind too that there are a whole lot of very delicious styles of ale that can be brewed until you get to that point!

 

[Yeeee]

Thank you so much for the information emjay! =) I will check out that book you mentioned.

As for cleaning the fermenter then, is regular household detergent good? eg. The stuff I used to wash my dishes? Palmolive is popular brand we use in Australia for hand washing our dishes. Will that do? Our is there something more specific which is good for cleaning the fermenter and all the bottles say......

Also, spring is just coming around the corner in Australia. So for the next month or so temps will be around the 18c-24c degree mark during the day, and it gets as cold as 10c degrees at night (which I can fix with a heat pad & blankets wrapped around the fermenter). They say the average is about 19/20c degrees. Could you guys recommend types of beers which ferment well in these conditions?

Should I go all out in the next 2 months and keep on fermenting lots of stuff? Come December in Australia, it usually around 25/26 degrees minimum here. And a lot of the time, it gets to be 28-34 degrees + during the scorchers! Are there any beers which do well in higher temperature fermenting? Or do I really have to invest in some cooler equipment during the summer heat if I want to ferment. Or wait it out till autumn to start up again if I don't invest in some cooling equipment?

Cheers!

 

[Lost]

I agree that a green (young) beer will taste rough. But green beers don't taste 'sour' to me. A lot people describe green beers as tasting like a green apple but, honestly, I don't detect that flavor note in my young beers. Perhaps my palette is not refined enough.

Either way I would definitely wait it out and not dump. Like I said, a touch of sourness from, say, brett could even be good - go try a lambic. But if it's an acetobacter infection then it will turn to vinegar. I can't be a whole lot of help here because in all my years brewing I've never had a infected batch of beer :knock on wood:

I agree, the beer looks fine but looks can be deceiving. It's how it tastes that matters. Wait and see.

I second the recommendation of "How to Brew" - that's the only brewing book I've ever read and I still refer back to it today after about 5 years of brewing all grain batches. If you go look in Palmer's book (www.howtobrew.com) there's a section in there discussing various 'off flavors' and their sources including infections.

As for cleaning, it is a bit of a pain cleaning the glass carboy but, then again, it's easy to tell when they are clean. Glass is a hard non porous surface that is gas impermeable and does not retain off flavors or odors. Plastic, not so much. Plus you can watch the fermentation in glass which is nice. Then again glass breaks and I would cry like a little girl if I dropped a carboy full of beer. If you do go with glass be sure to wrap a towel around it or keep it in a closet where the light will not skunk it. I will say that I do still have buckets but, honestly I use glass carboys most of the time. And I always do my secondary in glass.

As for cleaning, there is a L shaped brush you can get to help you clean the carboy and that helps a lot. I then give mine an overnight soak in an oxyclean solution (use the 'free' kind that is unscented). I don't use soap that often but when I do I prefer dos equis (sorry couldn't resist). Really though, if you use soap use something that is fragrance free. You don't want your beer to have a hint of 'fresh meadow' or something. Oxyclean works but it is the poor man's alternative to PBW which works really well and is designed specifically for cleaning beer making equipment. It's what actual breweries use.

If I use plastic then I bleach it with a strong bleach solution. Also, the buckets I use have an oring in the lid and I take that out and clean it real good. While the bucket itself is easy to clean, it, unlike the carboy, has a lid and the lid with the o ring and what not is a another thing to clean and sanitize so I'm really not convinced that bucket clean up is all that much easier.

As for warm weather fermentation, some yeasts will do better than others (i.e. have less 'off flavors' from from warm fermentation). But 75 deg F is really the max for any strain of ale yeast IMO. If you're going to ferment in warmer temps then you need to devise some sort of cooling method. Do a search.

The easiest is the "swamp cooler" (a wet towel + fan). I have taken a large cooler and replaced the lid with a sheet of polystyrene (styrofoam) which is cheap and readily available at Lowes (hardware store). I cut the lid to accommodate the neck of the carboys and add ice as needed. It works pretty well. If I had the space I'd get a fridge and a temp controller but I already have 1 fridge invested in my brewery (kegerator) and I just can't justify the space and expense of a second. IMO you only need to strictly manage temps during active fermentation. Once the krausen has fallen then it's not so important.

 

[Lost]

One more thing: I personally do not leave my beer in the primary for 3 weeks. That said, it should be fine and the additional time will help it clear. But too much time on the yeast cake and the trub (the hot and cold break left over from the boil) and you'll get off tastes - soapy usually. I think 3 weeks is the upper limit so don't get lazy and let it sit beyond that date.

That said, I like to let my beers sit for a while before kegging but I siphon them into a secondary vessel about a day or two after krausen has fallen. We can and have had a lengthy debate about the value of a secondary - several in fact. I think it's a good idea but not a necessity and I'll leave it at that. In brewing you'll find that there are a lot of things that are good or great to have but are not necessities for good beer.

 

[emjay]

Bah, I let many of my beers sit on the yeast for 2+ months (often out of laziness), and nobody, not even competition judges, have found off-flavors as a result of it. And pretty much ALL my beers get a minimum of 4 weeks.

This isn't really much of a problem for modern homebrewers, since yeast quality has vastly improved. It's only an issue these days when you're talking about crazy lengths of time... at least 6 months, and probably a fair bit longer than that. It is more of a concern for commercial breweries, where the pressures placed on the yeast (further compounded by the resultant increases in heat) in their very tall stainless fermentors are far higher than a homebrewer is going to encounter.

 

[ACbrewer]

there is as said cleaning which removes the dirt, and sanitation which removes 99% (technical definition in US is 99.999%) of the bacteria/microbes/yeasts etc.

Personally, I use dishsoap (dawn, although palmolive would be just as good) to remove any basic dirt. Hey a fermentor is nothing but a 6.5 gal tuperware container. If I'm cleaning something dried on - like gunk in a beer bottle, I soak in a solution of oxyclean. This also removes labels.

Lastly because I bought -at random - idaphor, I use that for sanitation. A since it is a contact sanitizer, a spray bottle of it is hand because then I can spray a spoon that I stir cooling wort with.

As for the 'it is only getting hotter'. I'd say yes, brew now when ambient temps are closer to 20C. Ideally if you have either Air Conditioning or a basement, put the fermentor where that is. The swamp coolers are another option - a wet tee shirt over the bucket, sitting in a little bit of water with a fan on it if needed to use water evaporation to help cool it.

Most critical in beer and temp is in the first 4 to 7 days when the yeast is most active. That isn't to say that you want to heat your beer after that time, just that the hazards to flavors are most critical early.

Your fermentor without an airlock shouldn't be a problem for escaping CO2, but it really isn't a good style for the 'let this sit here for 2 months' While a blanket of CO2 will form from the fermentation, with the changing airpreasures and such, you are open to air - although not dust, see L.Pasture's work from about 1870's. Anyhow, open to air means some O2 will get back in over a very long fermentation. >shrugg<

I wouldn't let that keep me from doing a 3 week extract nut brown or hefeweizen. It would keep me from doing a 2+month barleywine or similar.

If you are serrious about this hobby, you might consider getting 1 more fermentor to help you brew more between now and the heat.

 

[Yeeee]

Thanks so much for all your information.

I actually picked up a glass 5L demijohn the other day for ciders and stuff. There's how it's looking. Done from 4kg of fresh apples, bit of boiling water, yeast and yeast enhancer. I think I better get an apple press for the future as my household juicer seems to waste a lot of the pulp.

Seems like the yeasties have gone crazy and there's almost like a 'crust' building up on top of my cider. Guess this is normal? I didn't have this with my coopers fermenter, but I'm fermenting with a sealed demijohn with freshly juiced apples instead of a homebrew beer kit, so I guess it's gotta be different. With apple cider, is 18-22c degrees the optimal fermenting temp say? And would I go for say 2-3 weeks in the fermenter before bottling. Or don't I even have to bottle apple cider? And just leave it in the demijohn for 6 weeks say?

I'm going to get a big 23L carboy as well for future beer brewing too. =)


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