Smells sour

[Bentwoten]

This is my first Belgian tripel. Primary fermentation went great re-racked to a secondary and everything was fine. Used Nottingham Ale yeast. Nothing out of the ordinary smell was good tasted was good. Went to bottle today, and after putting it into my bottling bucket the smell is sour. Im a stickler about cleaning and sanitizing so I can not imagine that it was that. I literally clean and sanitize after brewing and do it again before using equipment again.

Is there an infection?

 

[kcpup]

Hard to tell. Share the recipe, fermentation temperatures, the equipment you ferment in, etc. OG, FG, too.

Using Notty on a Belgian Tripel grain bill does not a Belgian make. Notty isn't a Belgian yeast, so the character you'd expect for that style will not be present. That said, it doesn't mean the beer won't be drinkable or perhaps delicious. It won't be a Belgian, though. That style is largely about the yeast character.

Update with more information and we'll help you with problem solving.

Btw: what process did use use to rack your beer?

Cheers

 

[Revvy]

But does it TASTE sour?

Co2 can appear to have a sour smell to it to some folks.....Tasting it is the only way to know.

 

[sjbeerman]

+1 to the above post...you cannot make a Belgian without a Belgian yeast strain.

As far as the sour smell goes...does it smell like vinegar or ??? How does it taste?

 

[Bentwoten]

Did an extract kit to show my buddy how to brew. Wanted to do it quick so he could just see it done. anyways

6.6lb light LME
3LB Pilsen DME
1.LB light candi sugar
8oz Malodextrin

Steeped grains at 155 for 20 min
Boil time was 1 hour

Pitched yeast at 70 degrees

fermented at 70-74 degrees

Used a 6 gallon glass carboy
OG 1.085- FG 1.021

Primary Fermentation was good took off awesome, with big Kraeusen.
Lag time was around 24 hours.
Fermentation stopped at around 7 days.
Total fermentation was a little longer than I wanted let sit in carboy 5 weeks.
I should have racked to a secondary. I thought I put this one to a secondary I didnt. Other carboy had a IPA in it.
Anyways, could it have sat on the trub to long?

Smells and taste like a sour, reminds me of monks cafe sour. not too upset, because I love sours. But I wanna know what I did wrong, for brewing purposes. But yes, it has the vinegar smell.

As far as the yeast strain. I figured the same thing with using it, but it came with the kit and again I was just showing a buddy, so I went with it.

 

[sjbeerman]

Did you rehydrate the yeast? If so, what was your procedure?

 

[bruin_ale]

sourness isn't a flavor normally associated with autolysis, and 5 weeks isn't ridiculously long to leave in primary - so I'd rule that out.

I don't see anything in your process that would make it sour, I think you probably have some bugs somewhere. Acetic acid bacteria will cause the vinegar smell/taste you're talking about.

 

[Bentwoten]

re-hydrated the yeast in one cup of water at 98 degrees 98-100 degrees. Covered with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 min.

Could it have been the fermenting temps or maybe oxygen getting to the beer. I used a universal carboy bung that I didnt really like but they were out of the size I need for the drilled.

I just can't decide whether its a cidery taste from may acetobacter or estery from the high ferment temps.

Maybe its time to talk my wife in to letting me buy a chest freezer and a temp regulator. haha

 

[Bentwoten]

I'm not sure either way, but this think was rocking and rolling during fermentation. Maybe temps to high. I didn't notice any excessive cloudiness or anything, so that's why I was leaning away from contamination.

 

[Bentwoten]

Well it was a brand new Carboy so bugs in that. Maybe something in the ball valve or funnel and screen. Probably my lines. But I scrubbed and sanitized those too.

I will say it was cold out so hot break was bad. I did worry about that, but that wouldn't contribute to the flavors though. I ended up cleaning out my burner for next batch. That thing was roaring for the IPA.

Could not getting a great hour of boiling maybe let something slip past in the wort and get into the fermenter. Because as far a procedure goes that's the only problem I had.

 

[bruin_ale]

okay.. so does it taste sour or esthery? If you don't know what the off flavor is, it's going to be really hard to pinpoint. Esthers and phenols don't typically taste "sour", but maybe you're just not using the right words to describe what you taste. An hour at any temp above 170 (maybe 160 even?) will pasteurize the wort - so even if you didn't get a rolling boil, that's not going to cause an infection - just really bad hop AA utilization, but that's a whole different issue. Those ferment temps do seem high to me, but again - not typically something that will make a beer taste "sour" - esthery/phenolic for sure though. At those temps I'd expect banana phenols to make an appearance, could that be what you're tasting? BTW, is that 70-74 the surrounding temp or the temp of the fermentation itself? If that's the fermentation temp it's not totally ridiculous and likely you're going to get some green/red apple and other fruity esthers - but if that's ambient temp the ferment itself probably approached 80 where you'd expect to start getting phenols, fusels, and a host of other off flavors/aromas (especially w/ notty).