Sour apple taste

[Criostoir]

Hi all,

I bottled by first kit (Coopers English Bitter) a month ago. I cleaned everything with VWP and sanitised with Star San.

Kit plus 1.2 kg LME
Tap water (chlorinated)
OG 1.040
Fermented at 18-20C for 10 days. No control, just room temperature. The temp may have reached as high as 22C briefly during active fermentation.
FG 1.012
Bottled from the FV using carbonation drops

Taste seemed decent at bottling. Tried a bottle after 2 weeks and got a strong fruity taste that I put down as "green". Just tried a bottle at 4 weeks and it's near undrinkable: strong sort of sour apple taste that sticks with you.

Does that sound like an infection of some kind? I'm not sure whether to persist or dump it.

Thanks.

[mick02]

Hi all,

I bottled by first kit (Coopers English Bitter) a month ago. I cleaned everything with VWP and sanitised with Star San.

Kit plus 1.2 kg LME
Tap water (chlorinated)
OG 1.040
Fermented at 18-20C for 10 days. No control, just room temperature. The temp may have reached as high as 22C briefly during active fermentation.
FG 1.012
Bottled from the FV using carbonation drops

Taste seemed decent at bottling. Tried a bottle after 2 weeks and got a strong fruity taste that I put down as "green". Just tried a bottle at 4 weeks and it's near undrinkable: strong sort of sour apple taste that sticks with you.

Does that sound like an infection of some kind? I'm not sure whether to persist or dump it.

Thanks.

Take a look on this page - https://www.bjcp.org/faults.php

An Apple flavour is generally a sign of Acetaldehyde. The sourness could be down to a wild yeast infection too.

[Criostoir]

Thanks!

It does seem to be getting worse over time rather than better, so I expect I will have to dump it. I'm also remembering that, although I used VWP to clean everything (rinsed with tap water), I didn't have any Star San on hand until bottling. Lesson learned there, I suppose, although I also wonder if using water from the tap may have contributed.

I have a stout bottled and an amber ale fermenting, so fingers crossed they don't suffer the same fate!

[Cambrinus]

About two years back I had the same problem, a sour, astringent taste of my beer which gets worse over time.
I feared an infection and got rid of all my plastics, went to town on sanitising and reviewed my whole brewing process.
Tap water was treated with a Camden tablet the night before but this had no affect either.

In the end I changed the water to bottled water from Lidl (hard water) and Tesco (soft water). This solved my problem.

[Criostoir]

Interesting. The taste I'm getting does seem a bit like a thousand fold increase in the taste of the mains water.

I really hate buying fecking water, though!

[johnrm]

Then buy an RO system.

[mac2k]

If your beer is very highly carbonated, more so than that bottle you had at 2 weeks, then it's most likely an infection. If the carbonation has stayed the same then perhaps the water might be at fault.

[Jonnycheech]

As someone else pointed out Acetaldehyde is an off flavour that tastes and smells like apples, but it doesn't bring a sourness. Sounds like an infection. I'd start by making sure you use the Starsan for your next batch, it's magic stuff. Use it on everything that'll be in contact with the wort. If you're using the same equipment you'll need to make sure this is well cleaned. Might be worth getting a new fermentor but you should be fine if your cleaning is good.

I don't know if i'd bother buying water myself. I'd only be buying water if i was concerned with the water chemistry profile and knew that my water was particularly hard or variable in it's make up. Just get some campden and use this on your next batch, this will shift any chlorine in your water supply, which is the main concern when using tap water if you're not focusing on the chemistry.

[Criostoir]

Thanks for all the help!

The carbonation is not increasing, which makes an infection seem less likely, but a subsequent batch came out great, which makes a water problem seem less likely. We have had some disruption in the mains water lately, so maybe there was a really high level of chlorine when I started that particular batch. I'll use Campden tablets next time, regardless.

[Cambrinus]

Keep us posted on how you get on!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Criostoir]

To close the loop, nearly 8 weeks in the bottle now and it's a fine beer!! Apparently the yeast took it upon themselves to resolve whatever the issue was. A lesson in patience?

Thanks for all the help.

[CH]

That's brewing all over.
Sourness is almost certainly an infection.