Vinegary beer??

[danzig123]

I brewed an amber lager and need to figure out what went wrong. It's not bad, but has a sweet smell to it that doesn't match the taste. My wife describes as a sweet smell like cider vinegar and a taste that doesn't seem to match. I used 11% flaked corn and 3% cane sugar. Could this have caused the flavor and aroma, or is it the aceto bacter infection?

 

[Terek]

sounds infected. vinegar is not a good smell. i have seen time and time again that time heals all wounds, but doesnt sound good

 

[RM-MN]

Your beer also could just have an abundance of acetaldehyde, an intermediate product of fermentation that is described by different people as green apple, vinegary, or fresh cut pumpkin. If that is what you have, letting it ferment a bit longer, perhaps in a warmer location will let the yeast convert this to alcohol.

If it really is an acetobacter infection the beer will continue to get more and more like vinegar. If that happens, dump it out or bottle it as malt vinegar.

 

[danzig123]

So if the FG was 1.009 do you think it still had acetaldehyde ?

 

[RM-MN]

It could have. The breaking down of the acetaldehyde won't change the FG much if at all. If you leave it for a couple more weeks you will probably know. Acetaldehyde will go away, acetobacter infections always taste worse the longer you leave them.

 

[Calder]

So if the FG was 1.009 do you think it still had acetaldehyde ?

acetaldehyde is an intermediate product in fermentation. Depending on conditions it can generate a lot of it that can take a long time to change.

But .... vinegar is pretty distinctive, to my mind it is unmistakable. If you have vinegar, it will not improve, and will probably get worse, unless you can completely eliminate O2 (and that will just arrest the conversion to vinegar, not reverse it).

Take a sample, taste it and make you best evaluation. If you don't taste vinegar, or you are not sure, give it time to see if it improves.