Sour beer wort smells bad

[TLowell]

New brewer here. In the middle of my first attempt at making a kettle sour. Brew day went well. Used lactic acid to get pH of wort to 4.5 before pitching Lacto. No hops used in making the wort.
When I checked pH of wort after 30 hours the pH was down to 3.5. All good except there was a foul smell coming from the wort bucket. It did smell like diapers or vomit or smelly socks..... bad....
I went ahead with the recipe. Brought wort to boil for 70 minutes, added 1/4 oz of hops with 30 minutes left in the boil then chilled to 65 F and pitched yeast. The smell got less as I boiled.
After fermenting a week and gravity is where it should be and the smell is gone. Now it just smells like beer. I intend to ride it out but was curious if anyone has other thoughts? Thanks!

 

[gunhaus]

I think souring beer smells like puke a lot. As long as it does not taste like puke when it is done, all is good.

 

[Jag75]

Welcome to the forum .

Check out co pitching sours. Way easier with less risk and no seperate equipment needed.

 

[TLowell]

Thanks gunhaus! Will post about the flavor once it’s complete...

 

[RPh_Guy]

The beer may contain toxins from the contaminating microbes. I would dump it.

 

[TLowell]

Alrighty then.... beer is complete and I just drank the first one. i am happy to say that it tasted pretty good With no detectable effects from the bad smell during souring.
The beer was properly sour but I missed on the amount of tangerine added. It was not enough but I remedy that by squeezing some orange in.... all in all, a solid first attempt at souring
thanks!!

 

[cactusgarrett]

This is fairly common for kettle sours - smells bad during souring then cleans up fine during fermentation. Congrats on a beer you're happy with!

 

[Kent88]

I'm a little late to the party here, but I remember a berliner weiss I made by kettle souring that smelled terrible while it was young. I think it took about 3 months in bottle to lose the sock funk, but after that it was almost like lemonade. I should make that again.

Good work on your sour.

 

[KeizerBrewr]

Remember, you're using bacteria to get what you're looking for; intentionally infecting your brew. Bacteria naturally reeks when it's processing nutrients. But then you boiled it, bittered the wort and then pitched yeast. A few months later you crack the first bottle and its a wonderous treat. Go figure

 

[TLowell]

Kent88 it was a Berliner Weiss recipe that I soured.

I popped back on to say that it continues to get better with time. I had let it sit two weeks from bottling before trying. Now at week three since bottling it is even better!
Wife is not a huge beer drinker but we sat tonight and had three each before we knew it.. Thanks for the tips and advice!!