First batch (of my own). I've helped a friend brew a few in the past.
Got a Brewers Best English Brown Ale extract kit, and everything went well during the process of making it.
I was using a friends equipment for the boil/chill and used my own primary/secondary.
It was in primary for 7 days, then racked to secondary for 10 days (3 of which spent cold crashing).
Anyway, it tasted great before fermentation.
It tasted great before cold crashing.
It tasted slightly sour during bottling (3 days after the cold crash).
I added gelatin (as recommended by my friend) when I moved it to the secondary. I boiled 1.5 cups of water on the stove, cooled it to about 110*F and then gently mixed the gelatin in. I then poured this mixture into the secondary.
5 days after bottling I cracked one open (We like to do a bottle every 5 days until it's ready). Poured clear, looked wonderful, but smelled a little off. It had very little carbonation, but that was to be expected. I took a taste and it was awful. It was extremely sour -- I couldn't even choke down more than 5 sips (just to try and determine the flavor). It was almost like vinegar. It started off sweet, started to get sour, then just foul. The aftertaste was where I was picking up the vinegar from. After some googling around I am clinging to the hopes that it will get better, but I fear that I may have an infected batch here. It was impossible to choke down and I am really tempted to crack open another random bottle just to see if all of them are like this.
I sanitized the hell out of everything that I used. I bought a new sponge (no rough side) and washed everything in soap, followed by bleach, rinsed, and then used starsan last.
I also worry for my next batch that has been happily bubbling away in the same fermenter that this batch was in. My bottling bucket does not have a spigot, so I can rule that probability out.
I know a vinegary taste is definitely not a good sign, but is there any chance that it will go away with time, or just get worse? In the batches I've helped my friend with in the past, we've never experienced a taste quite like this. I guess a bad batch was going to happen sooner or later.
Any thoughts?
Got a Brewers Best English Brown Ale extract kit, and everything went well during the process of making it.
I was using a friends equipment for the boil/chill and used my own primary/secondary.
It was in primary for 7 days, then racked to secondary for 10 days (3 of which spent cold crashing).
Anyway, it tasted great before fermentation.
It tasted great before cold crashing.
It tasted slightly sour during bottling (3 days after the cold crash).
I added gelatin (as recommended by my friend) when I moved it to the secondary. I boiled 1.5 cups of water on the stove, cooled it to about 110*F and then gently mixed the gelatin in. I then poured this mixture into the secondary.
5 days after bottling I cracked one open (We like to do a bottle every 5 days until it's ready). Poured clear, looked wonderful, but smelled a little off. It had very little carbonation, but that was to be expected. I took a taste and it was awful. It was extremely sour -- I couldn't even choke down more than 5 sips (just to try and determine the flavor). It was almost like vinegar. It started off sweet, started to get sour, then just foul. The aftertaste was where I was picking up the vinegar from. After some googling around I am clinging to the hopes that it will get better, but I fear that I may have an infected batch here. It was impossible to choke down and I am really tempted to crack open another random bottle just to see if all of them are like this.
I sanitized the hell out of everything that I used. I bought a new sponge (no rough side) and washed everything in soap, followed by bleach, rinsed, and then used starsan last.
I also worry for my next batch that has been happily bubbling away in the same fermenter that this batch was in. My bottling bucket does not have a spigot, so I can rule that probability out.
I know a vinegary taste is definitely not a good sign, but is there any chance that it will go away with time, or just get worse? In the batches I've helped my friend with in the past, we've never experienced a taste quite like this. I guess a bad batch was going to happen sooner or later.
Any thoughts?