Soured wort?

[jrhslick1]

I just racked my wort into the secondary and it tastes a bit sour (not supposed to be). It has been in the primary for just over 2 weeks.
I am brewing a Coopers Australian Pale Ale Hopped Can Kit which I purchased just a month ago from Austin Homebrew (I get most of my kits from them) and have been brewing for 10 years+ and never have had this issue before. The PH was correct when I pitched the yeast and the wort was right at 70F. I usually like brewing a partial mash but this time wanted a quick brew so chose the hopped-canned kit. I have had good luck in the past with these.
I am in SC and am brewing in a utility room in back of my carport so I know the cold will slow the fermentation. About a week into the fermentation, I put a heat pad beneath the fermentor which brought the wort to about 72F (raised the temp about 10 degrees).
Any thoughts or suggestions from you master brewers out there?
thanks
john

 

[Jag75]

What did it look like in the fv? Any pellicle formation? Normal Krausen? If it tastes sour something was in the fv already or you had suckback from the temp drop and pulled something in.

I used to do secondaries all the time . My Aunt was old school and that's how she taught me. It took me a little while to realize there's no reason to do it unless your aging .

Maybe it's just really green and needs to sit a little bit . How's the FG ?

 

[hotbeer]

If it's sour, then it's sour. Not much you can for it do at this point.

However if you didn't see anything strange on the surface then I'd think it's not. Perhaps when you sampled it your taster was a bit off and maybe it confused some other tastes such as alcohol and sweet with sour.

I'd wait till it time to bottle or keg and then maybe if it's really and truly awful, then I'd toss it. However if it just something I didn't like the taste of, I'd still bottle it and see what it becomes after it carbonates.

 

[BrewChem]

Only have two options… dump it (not recommended) or let it ride and see how it turns out. You may end up with something you really like.!

 

[mashpaddled]

The bigger issue is how did this beer become sour? If the can was sour--which doesn't seem to be the case--then this is a one time thing and not a long term problem. If the beer became infected in your brewhouse then you need to deal with the infection to prevent future batches from falling to the same fate. Personally I would treat it as a brewhouse problem and clean/sanitize everything.

As far as this beer goes not a lot of options. If you like it sour then great. Drink and enjoy it. If you don't like it you could try adding some calcium carbonate and see if buffering the acidity makes something you want to drink. Otherwise probably best to dump it.

 

[jrhslick1]

Well, I finally got around to putting this into bottles! 2/3 cup of carbonation sugar into the wort then bottled. I am using Grolsch style bottles so I don't have to cap. Tasting it during this, no more soured taste, just smooth fresh ale. Now to wait a couple of weeks for the additional sugars to work their magic!