BeerBorg

Hi guys! I'm pretty new to brewing an trying to learn all I can. My first batch was pretty good and is still bottle conditioning further. It was the evil Pilsner that came with my brewdemon kit. My second batch I just tasted and gave me many questions. It was the twisted monk wheat beer from brewdemon and all went well during the process as with my first batch. I let it ferment one week then bottled with table sugar as my way of priming. It's been five days since I bottled and I thought I'd try my brew. I chilled overnight in the fridge and well it tasted awful. Visually the beer was beautiful. Nice color. Nice head and nicely carbonated. It looked like a "good" beer should look. The taste reminded me of sour milk. And I couldn't drink it. I had to spit and pour it out which is almost against everything I stand for. I've only ever really bought commercial beer before so I'd never experienced beer undrinkable like this before. That's the only way I can describe it. Sour milk. Something tells me it was maybe a problem with ingredients as I'm a stickler for instructions and preparation so I don't think I contaminated it. I don't think my beers infected but then again what do I really know. Should I not have chilled a wheat beer while it's still conditioning maybe? Any ideas or input is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

I'd forget about the normal instructions and let it ferment an absolute minimum of 10 days. Better at between14-20 days. Good stuff takes time. But, it could be a sanitation problem too.
Don't let this bum you out. Everyone starts out with plenty of doubt and some not so great luck so keep trying. We're all here to help you.

Welcome to the Borg!

Let it ferment 3 weeks
Then bottle and allow carb and conditioning AT LEAST 4 weeks

Hello and Welcome to The Borg
Time and patience is good in this hobby. Ask questions all you want here because we all like to help everybody make good beer.
Good Luck and Happy Brewing

Does it taste like sour apple (like apple cider) or does it really taste like sour milk, or does it taste like vinegar (which tastes sour but different then sour milk).

If sour apple, you bottled too soon, and/or are drinking it too young like others said. That's a compound called acetaldehyde, and the yeast will "eat" it given time, but they need time (and room temperature) to do it. Next time try 2-3 weeks in the fermenter, and then 3-4 weeks let it sit at room temperature afterword's. You can try one at 2 weeks if you really want, as some beers are good that soon but waiting 3-4 weeks is safer until you get a handle on what will be good and what needs to wait. Timings will tighten up when you start pitching more yeast then you get with the kits.

But if it really tastes like sour milk (or vinegar) then you got a bacterial infection, either lactobacter or acetobacter - and something went wrong with your sanitation procedures. Could be anywhere/anything that touched the beer, although if its that sour so soon, my bet is it was the fermenter itself or the whisk you aerated with or something early in the fermentation process. So you will want to be extra careful. Make sure you sanitize your spigot. If you aren't going to remove it and take it apart and sanitize it between every batch, then at the very least after bottling and cleaning your fermenter, pour the sanitizer that you used for bottling into the fermenter, and then run it all through the spigot, and then run the sanitizer through the spigot again on brew day (don't just dump it out the top).

Thanks guys for the feedback. And mashani that was super informative. Thanks! I'll ferment longer to get better results and better beer. Now that I'm thinking and tasting further I think I'm tasting something that's kind of evident in my first batch too which was also fermented in a week. You guys are right the beers to young. I already got them in the fridge so I'm sure the yeast died and im stuck with the beer the way it is. Thanks guys and I'll deffinitely be back with more questions.

DeerBrinker wrote: You guys are right the beers to young. I already got them in the fridge so I'm sure the yeast died and im stuck with the beer the way it is.

Actually no the yeast didn't die, it just goes to sleep in the cold fridg temps. pull them out and Let them sit at about 68 to 70 deg for a few weeks and then try one.

Welcome to the forum

Welcome Deer. Those guys are right, be patient. Study and practice, in time you will make great beer.

Welcome to the Borg. Looks like others pretty much have you covered on this one, enjoy your new obsession!

These guys have pretty much covered your issues....so I'll just say, welcome to the Borg.

Welcome. RDWHAHB (Relax Don't Worry Have A Homebrew) oh wait you tried that Take your time as all have said above, watch your sanitization and while you are waiting for those first brews to be ready get a book and start your quest into this hobby/obsession. You will make great beer.

Welcome to the Borg DeerBrinker! Glad you found us!!

As usual, the Borg is on top of things and way faster than me on the keyboard. Nothing for me to add except for the welcome. As you can see, there are a lot of great people on here who love to help. Keep asking questions when you need to, and let us know how your brews keep improving over time. We were all new brewers at one point.

enjoy

Many things a new brewer has to look at when starting out not only what has been mentioned above also fermentation temps. will help on making good brews during the first week or so the wort can rise 8-10 deg. above the recommended yeast range get you a stick on thermometer form your LHBS or a pet shop.

DeerBrinker wrote:Hi guys! I'm pretty new to brewing an trying to learn all I can. My first batch was pretty good and is still bottle conditioning further. It was the evil Pilsner that came with my brewdemon kit. My second batch I just tasted and gave me many questions. It was the twisted monk wheat beer from brewdemon and all went well during the process as with my first batch. I let it ferment one week then bottled with table sugar as my way of priming. It's been five days since I bottled and I thought I'd try my brew. I chilled overnight in the fridge and well it tasted awful. Visually the beer was beautiful. Nice color. Nice head and nicely carbonated. It looked like a "good" beer should look. The taste reminded me of sour milk. And I couldn't drink it. I had to spit and pour it out which is almost against everything I stand for. I've only ever really bought commercial beer before so I'd never experienced beer undrinkable like this before. That's the only way I can describe it. Sour milk. Something tells me it was maybe a problem with ingredients as I'm a stickler for instructions and preparation so I don't think I contaminated it. I don't think my beers infected but then again what do I really know. Should I not have chilled a wheat beer while it's still conditioning maybe? Any ideas or input is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

Hello DeerBrinker,
This happens to the best of us, but it definitely sounds like an infection. And no matter how long you let this sit, ferment or condition this infection will not go away. See below.

Why does my beer taste sour?
It is almost always due to poor sanitation, causing infection with bacteria or wild yeast, at some point in your brewing process. This could include poor sanitation when cooling the wort, fermenting it, adding ingredients to the fermenter, sampling or measuring the beer, transferring it or bottling/kegging.