Sour beer side by side

Not so recently ago (a little less than a year) I made my first attempt at brewing a sour beer. Since I considered it an experiment, and admittedly I didn't really know what I was doing, I only brewed 2.5 gallons. I imagined the beer would be a sour raspberry "lambic" of sorts. I brewed it in august of last year and fermented it in 3 separate containers (two one-gallon glass jugs, and one half-gallon glass growler). The two one-gallon jugs were fermented exactly the same: brewed the beer, added frozen raspberries, and pitched wyeast Belgian lambic blend (3278), and let them sit in my basement to ferment out/age. The half-gallon carboy was slightly different: pitching the yeast, letting it sit outside overnight with cheese cloth, and added a few un-sanitized homegrown grapes for the extra yeast/bacteria culture (just because I wanted to experiment with what the local micro-flora). Fermentation went well (from what I could tell), and at about six months I drew my first sample - the one gallon jugs tasted horrible. I remember notes of cleaning solvent, astringency, and a bit of butterscotch. However, the half gallon jug was tasting great! I figured I would let it sit for another couple of months, let it do its thing, and come back to it. Today I came back to draw the second sample. It was much better, most of the off flavors had subsided, however the two one gallon jugs taste quite different. The lighter of the two in the picture is tasting better (still not "good," but better) and the darker is still borderline gross. Which brings me to a few questions:

1) Why such a drastic difference in color?! Each jug was treated identically with the same amount of yeast/raspberries in each.
2) Why such variation in taste?
3) Any idea where these off-flavors would come from?

The recipe:
2# Wheat DME
1# Pilsen DME
6 oz. Carahell
2 oz. Belgian Aromatic
.25 oz saaz @ 60 min
.25 oz saaz @ 30 min
Full boil




Thanks for any input!

 

I came to the same conclusion, but can't figure it out. I sanitize with starsan for a minimum of 10 minutes for my fermentors, caps, airlocks, and funnel. I pitch my microbes in my kitchen, where the jugs were for the first 24 hours (except for the .5 gallon)

What about the color?

 

Each of the beers are sour and have a slight acetic character. Both, for a while had a slight dactyl (butterscotch/pop corny-ish) taste to them, but that subsided to a greater degree in the lighter of the two. The darker beer has a cleaning product/madicinal tastw (it's hard to describe) with a bit of a sherry/wine character. @oldstock, no dry airlocks, but one of the caps did have a crack in it early on, but I replaced it within the day I noticed it. But you maybe on to something as the darker jug never really formed the a pelicle like the other jug (which still has a nice thick one) maybe exposing it to more 02

 

I'm aware of this, and for an amount of time the dark jug did seem to have a thin pelicle (but never as thick as the other jug) and it has since dropped out. I was just wondering if that would leave it exposed to the oxygen after the fact. Also, if my pallet is correct, sherry/acetic notes seem to be a characteristic of oxidation - according to the John Palmer page. I'm really just throwing guesses in hopes to get help/advice. I just don't want to make the same mistakes with my other sours!

 

hmn, didn't think of that. From what I remember I did use two bags, but I'm fairly certain that I combined them to weigh them out (since each bag was 12oz and I needed 2#s). As far as color, I don't remeber any big variability... but then again this was about a year ago.

Any possible negative effects of adding the berries so early? I know no that the preferred method is to add them a month or so before bottling.