Why is my wheat ale sour?

palmtrees · Jul 11, 2013

I've lurked on this forum for a while, but this is my first post. Thanks for all of the advice y'all have unintentionally provided me! I've been brewing since January, and I've generally had great results. But on my 8th batch, I had one of those nightmare brew days where everything goes wrong. I was making a very simple wheat ale as a base for a green chile beer. It was a 3 gallon recipe using 3 lbs of wheat LME and one addition of Saaz pellets at the beginning of the boil. Right after I had heated up the water and dissolved the LME, I got a call from work and had to leave the house for a few hours. Since I hadn't added any hops, I figured the best thing to do was leave the wort covered until I got back and could restart the boil.

When I got home, it was late, but I wanted to at least get the boil done. When it was finished, I realized I had forgotten to put my immersion chiller in the boil to sanitize it. Of course. It was really late at that point, and I didn't have time to chill it in the sink. So I left it covered overnight, and then I racked it and pitched the yeast in the morning.

Fermentation went fine. No signs of any infection. But 10 days after pitching, I took a sample and it was pretty sour. I put the green chiles in as planned and hoped the sourness would fade. After 5 days on the chiles, I took another sample. Still sour. It's not as sour as if I had intentionally done a sour mash, but it's very noticeable.

Does anybody have a guess about which of the brew-day issues could've caused the sourness? And is there any hope that will go away as it matures?

reverendj1 · Jul 11, 2013

Yeah, I've left wort overnight before pitching yeast several times (5+) without incident. I did it once or twice out of necessity, then I got cocky. But I think I did get an infection on two beers from doing it, so I have stopped the practice. One was very minor, and couldn't be detected for at least 3 weeks, the other was very noticeable when bottling. I still kept it because I actually like sours, and it did sort of work as a sour. From my understanding and experience, sourness doesn't really go away. I believe Brett is slow acting, and attenuates better, so if anything, it should get more sour.

webdevsoup · Jul 11, 2013

Is it sour like a vinegar type flavor? If so, I would say it was probably leaving it out overnight. Food service teaches us that the amount of time a particular food can stay in the "danger zone" (45-135 degrees Fahrenheit) is 4 hours before it is so overridden by bacteria that it spoils. What yeast did you pitch, smack pack or dry? If you pitched smack, did you sanitize the pack first? Also, did you sanitize the fermenter enough prior to racking?

Sounds like you had an infection somewhere, I would guess equipment.

reverendj1 · Jul 11, 2013

webdevsoup said:
Is it sour like a vinegar type flavor? If so, I would say it was probably leaving it out overnight. Food service teaches us that the amount of time a particular food can stay in the "danger zone" (45-135 degrees Fahrenheit) is 4 hours before it is so overridden by bacteria that it spoils. What yeast did you pitch, smack pack or dry? If you pitched smack, did you sanitize the pack first? Also, did you sanitize the fermenter enough prior to racking?

Sounds like you had an infection somewhere, I would guess equipment.

I don't think you necessarily need any equipment to be infected. Wild yeast is all around us (in the air, etc). If you have headspace in your fermenter, I think that's all that's really needed to start a colony, if you give them the perfect conditions to thrive in and no competition. At any rate, bleach bomb or replace anything that beer touched.

palmtrees · Jul 11, 2013

I repitched some yeast from a prior batch. It was my first time doing that, but I followed the recommended sanitizing procedures on here (pre-boiled water, sanitized containers, etc.). I have a pretty heavy-duty sanitation routine, so I doubt it's from my equipment. But who knows. It's just a shame I had so many issues with this beer; it's hard to isolate the problem.

Luckily, this beer has been sitting in a glass carboy the whole time, so cleaning up after it should be easy.

webdevsoup · Jul 11, 2013

While it may not have been equipment I was merely speaking from experience. It could be any number of issues seeing as you were trying several new methods. I have had to toss two different beers because of improper sanitation of equipment.