I have cracked open a few bottles after a few days... I know its not carbonated but just wanted to sample it, much to my shock some have a sour taste. The odd part is samples where done at every stage up to and right from the bottling bucket and it did not have a sour taste. Now after a few days in the bottle it has a tones of a sour taste... 1st bottle was a strong sour taste, 2nd one hardly had this taste and 3rd had hints of it. Does not smell sour, in fact smells really really nice. Thoughts (does it just need more time or is something maybe wrong)?
If its truely sour, as in it's becoming acidic, it could be an infection. Another possibility is I've seen people mistake acetaldehyde for sourness/infection.
Leave the beer alone for a week or two until its fully carbed and the 2ndary/3ertiary fermentation in the bottle is complete. IIRC I had some really weird soapy flavors come out of a Sweet Potato Stout while it was carbing up, that were completely gone after about 2-3 weeks in the bottle (No sourness though).
Good share here, I think time might end up being the best fix, otherwise I have to just drink a lot of sour beer
I have the same problem with virtually every homebrew batch. I did extract with steeping grains at first and now I do partial mash and the same problem. Every batch develops a very slight sour off flavor after a few weeks in the bottle. They always taste amazing before carbonation. It's not an infection. I use careful sanitization methods and I doubt 20+ batches have all been infected. I use reliable online brew supply companies for my ingredients. I've had batches ferment anywhere from 62 degrees to 78 degrees and all develop the same flavor. I always use one of the chico strain yeasts. I doubt that is the culprit. I will say that darker beers like browns and black ipas seem to mask it a little more. It gets frustrating because I've researched this numerous times and everyone wants to point to an infection and many, many people have asked the same question and are obviously experiencing the same issue and no one ever seems to have an answer to solve the problem. Maybe there really is "extract twang" and that's what the flavor is. Or could it be oxidation. I'm at a loss!
Could be extract "twang", which is generally due to a combination of stale extract and poor boil technique. My advice would be use dry extract instead of liquid extract, and do full wort boils. Try to stick to extra light DME only and get all of your color and flavor from your partial mash, and no topping up in the fermenter with water, get a bigger kettle if you have to.
I generally use Briess Golden Light or sometimes Muntons Light DME. I never use liquid. I could try Extra Light DME. I do full wort boils. The only thing I can think of is that I have been dumping my partial mash wort into my boil kettle and all the splashing could be causing hot side aeration. Does that sound like it could be a problem?
What water source are you using? As that may be one variable that can produce off flavors that is usually consistent over multiple beers / a long period of time brewing.
But I'd be surprised if the water was the issue, because this off flavor becomes more noticeable after a couple of weeks of aging.
Could it be the carbonic acid that is formed once your beers are carbonated? How are you carbing your beers?
I generally bottle carb with corn sugar, though I've used table sugar a couple of times. Are there other better options when bottle carbing?
My samples usually are fantastic before carbing, so I'm wondering if it has anything to do with sugar. I think I might try carbing with DME next time to see if there's a difference. It seems a lot of people think so. I am aware it takes a bit longer to carbonate with DME.
