Sour smell to my batch

[Semicole]

Hi Guys,

So I've brewed 3 batches so far, one Brooklyn Brewshop kit, one Mr. Beer kit and my most recent, Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde, which is the batch in question. Keep in mind I bottled the kit batches and decided to keg this Centennial Blonde.

The first two batches went good and taste good, but this most recent one I'm a little concerned about. I put it in the fermenter on January 14th and just kegged it today on February 3rd. When I opened the fermenter it smelled very sour, so I was worried right off the bat. I went ahead and kegged it, it's been in my kegerator at 10 psi for around 3 hours now. I tested a glass right when it went in and it still smelled extremely sour, and I tested another about 3 hours after I kegged it and it was still just as sour. The taste isn't sour, only the smell, the taste is still pretty bland, but I expect it to get better once it's kegged for a few days.

So should I be worried? Will the smell go away with it being kegged? Any ideas?

 

[deks77]

I wouldnt sweat it if it doesnt taste sour. Give it some time and see how it smells and tastes.. I just made a wheat it smelt and tasted strange a week in the bottles it came to be more what I was expecting.

 

[xico]

I would follow your instincts and save it to try later on. Can you give more details of the smell? Is it sour like green apple or vinegar? You don't have any pH strips or meter by any chance do you?

A rule of thumb is that if it made ethanol above 5% it will be fine to drink. I wouldn't worry about getting sick from it if that's a concern.

 

[Semicole]

I wouldnt sweat it if it doesnt taste sour. Give it some time and see how it smells and tastes.. I just made a wheat it smelt and tasted strange a week in the bottles it came to be more what I was expecting.

Will it change in the keg with time as well? I'm not as familiar with kegging as I am bottle conditioning. I didn't know if it will condition in the keg like it does the bottle.

 

[Semicole]

I would follow your instincts and save it to try later on. Can you give more details of the smell? Is it sour like green apple or vinegar? You don't have any pH strips or meter by any chance do you?

A rule of thumb is that if it made ethanol above 5% it will be fine to drink. I wouldn't worry about getting sick from it if that's a concern.

I'll give it another smell once I get home today, but going off of memory I think it smelled more like a sour beer smells - like a sour style beer.

 

[helibrewer]

Did you prime the keg or are you force carbing? A pH test would be great if you have a meter. Let it ride in the keg for a couple weeks and re-sample. What yeast strain did you use?

 

[Semicole]

Did you prime the keg or are you force carbing? A pH test would be great if you have a meter. Let it ride in the keg for a couple weeks and re-sample. What yeast strain did you use?

See I don't know enough about kegging obviously lol, I'm not sure what the difference between the two are. I racked the beer to the keg, hooked it up to the co2 in the kegerator and turned my pressure to 10psi. I then relieved the pressure in the keg a few times to purge the oxygen out and have left it sitting at 10psi since.

 

[Semicole]

Did you prime the keg or are you force carbing? A pH test would be great if you have a meter. Let it ride in the keg for a couple weeks and re-sample. What yeast strain did you use?

I have a Hanna checked for my saltwater tank, I can try to use it to check the pH of the beer.

 

[helibrewer]

See I don't know enough about kegging obviously lol, I'm not sure what the difference between the two are. I racked the beer to the keg, hooked it up to the co2 in the kegerator and turned my pressure to 10psi. I then relieved the pressure in the keg a few times to purge the oxygen out and have left it sitting at 10psi since.

That is force carbing....if you had added priming sugar then it would be primed, just like bottling, which is great technique and you should try priming at least once to see how you like it....you can always tweek the carbonation by venting or adding CO2.

Consult a carbonation chart to determine the correct pressure to set, it is dependent on temperature. Shoot for 2.5 volumes of CO2

 

[Semicole]

That is force carbing....if you had added priming sugar then it would be primed, just like bottling, which is great technique and you should try priming at least once to see how you like it....you can always tweek the carbonation by venting or adding CO2.

Consult a carbonation chart to determine the correct pressure to set, it is dependent on temperature. Shoot for 2.5 volumes of CO2

Gotcha. Yeah I just force carbed then. I used Nottingham yeast (hydrated) as well by the way.

 

[helibrewer]

I think all will be well

 

[Semicole]

I think all will be well

Will the smell/flavor usually change in a keg when it's forced carbed?

 

[xico]

To answer your question it could change some flavors in the keg/bottle or may stay the same, depending on the cause.

If it comes off like unpleasant sour apple it may not be a contamination but the yeast wasn't able to handle the entire fermentation. In that case adding a little more yeast to the keg may get it up and running. If you haven't started, I would recommend hydrating your yeast if you are using dry. Wort is a stressful environment for cells to extract water from for their awakening. Quite a few don't take part in the fermentation and can cause delays.

If the sour comes from a contamination then the beer will most certainly change in flavor over time. I find warm still beer harder to detect sour flavor. It may be worth pulling some into a little jar and cooling it down to taste. If it's sour in flavor it is (Edit) possibly this reason.

I attach a blow-off on the gas line of the keg and it works great for secondary. If you are looking to keg condition, which is the same as bottles, I would recommend looking into spunding valves. It's not the likely early hardware people expect to buy but knowing it's out there might be useful when you are upgrading your equipment.

 

[stieg000]

Carbonation and age truly changes the taste of a beer over time. I often taste beer a few days after carbonating and every few days thereafter. A few weeks later when it's up to full carbonation it can taste amazing. I just did this with a guiness clone, I didn't like it early on but a month in the keg and I couldn't tell it apart from a real guiness.