Sour tasting beer

[Andrew Phillips]

On December 1st I brewed a pretty straight forward, all grain, Pale Ale.And after boiling transferred wort into cleaned (PBW) and Sanitized (Starsan) fermenter. I added a prepared "smack pack" of Wyeast and, after 24 hours, nothing no sign of any activity. Twenty four hours later slight activity. Deciding to brazen it out I went to Australia for 10 days to watch some cricket...upon returning there was sign that fermentation had occurred. Dry hopped on 15th. and today 29th had a little sip...disappointingly sour to the taste and no great aroma...I will give it the benefit of the doubt and keg in a couple of days and see if it improves.

Question could this sourness be as a result of prolonged sparging, 45-60 minutes, or a a result of the slow activity of the yeast?

[Mark Jackman]

Sourness sounds more like a sanitation issue, or more to the point something else getting a good foothold before the yeast got going.  Sparging too hot or until the gravity is too low can draw excessive tannins from the grain which will result in a beer which is astringent but cound be considered sour.  How is it tasting now?

[Andrew Phillips]

The beer is currently conditioning in a keg...I'll leave it there for a few weeks before trying again. I'll let you know.

I don't think the sparging was too hot, but I did read somewhere that if the Ph is too high it can lead to the extraction of tannins...that would be of some concern because the water was "Burtonised" to increase alkalinity.

Fingers crossed, it might turn out OK.

[Andrew Phillips]

Just to let you know that the Pale Ale turned out OK...not great but OK after conditioning through to the end of March...A great excuse for a BBQ saw it all off in one evening. The acrid aroma had mellowed considerably, it seemed to need to breathe, either that or after the first pint or two it didn't matter anymore. A dry finish leaving a clean palate and an acceptable bitterness developing from the back of the tongue.

Thanks again for your input.