Suspicions of a bad batch

[Fiziks]

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?

 

[MacGruber]

What temperature did it ferment at? Temperature control is #1 when it comes to making good beer.

 

[MacGruber]

Also, you should never wash anything that comes in contact with your beer with soap. I saw you used Star San, which is great. All that's really necessary is to wash the bottles with water, scrub them with a brush to make sure there is no debris, and hit them with star San. It's a no rinse sanitizer so empty them and fill with your beer. I think you had too much going on with soap, bleach, and Star San. It's overkill.

 

[Yooper]

"Vinegar" won't go away- that is caused by contamination/infection. Another source of sour flavor is lactobacillus contamination. That won't go away.

If it's just slightly sour, sometimes that is from acetaldehyde. That usually does fade, as it's sometimes found in young beer. That is more like a "green apple" type of sour, and not vinegary.

Since it tasted slightly sour before bottling, it sounds more like contamination than just young beer, sorry to say.

I wonder if you had a lot of headspace in your secondary, and the oxygen contact allowed this infection to start.

Maybe for this batch, don't rack to a clearing vessel to avoid that possibility and then just bottle when the beer is 2 weeks old without that transfer to a clearing vessel first.

 

[Fiziks]

@MacGruber
During fermentation it was at 68-72.

Thanks for the tips on cleaning, I'll do that in the future since it will save me a lot of work. I am curious as to why I should avoid soap?

@Yooper
The secondary did have more head space in it than I would have liked, so perhaps this could be the culprit. I'm thinking that whatever it was likely came from when it was in the secondary. I usually brew 6 gallon batches and this one was only about 5.25 in my 6 gallon carboy.

I think I'll stick with your suggestion and just leave my current batch in the primary for at least two weeks. I was going to rack this batch to secondary and add some fruit zest, but I'd hate to have two ruined batches in a row. How long can it sit in the primary before any off tastes start to develop? I'd like to let it clear up a little bit if possible.

Thanks

 

[DPBISME]

MAN! Seems it is anaful "young" beer to have gone bad so fast...

I have had Hefe-Weisens start to turn,( low alcohol and low hops), after a couple onths but nothing as fast as you describe...

I use Oxyclean and lst stuff soak... and then Starsan and let stuff soak...

Check your tubing and your "faucet" I have found yeast caked in the faucet before from an earlier batch... many of them come apart.

Let's hope you had a dirty bottle or cap and this was an exception...

I have never had a bucket go bad but like I said I Oxyclean them (cold water) clean them with a soft scratch pad... the blues ones, and then usually they soak in StarSan the whole time my wort is boiling and cooling down...



I would give up on the bleach by the way it can cause taste problems also...

 

[unionrdr]

You also said you "poured it into secondary". That oxygenated it,making the problem worse. Every little part that touches your beer must be claned & sanitized. I use PBW,starsan,& brushes with rinsing (except for the starsan) to prevent this sort of thing.