Why would my pumpkin beer taste sour?

if that’s the case better dump them before they explode

1 Like

Yup

I would assume the 1 gallon kit came with a 1 gallon jug though, yeh? Interesting subject I would think they would have exploded in the bottles by 4 weeks in a primary fermentation stage.

1 Like

Hi … I mistyped before so allow me to clarify. I didn’t bottle anything right away. I cooled the wort to approx 60-70 degrees, I put it in the fermenting jug that came with my kit. There it sat for two weeks. Everything looked great. air bubbles had stopped coming through the airlock. Foam had subsided. At that point, I bottled the beer. I was very careful to sanitize everything. I added one fizz drop to each bottle and capped them. I then let the beer sit for three weeks and tested on of the bottles. It foamed all over and beer tasted sour. I waited another week to try a bottle and while the beer didn’t foam over, it smelled yeasty and tasted sour like green apples. It is my hope that the beer will get better with more time.

the very first beer I made was green apple too. Welcome to the club. Patience and temperature control have eliminated that from all my subsequent beers.

Same thing did think he bottled after fermetation was done. Straight after boil. Never here about this noob is right. Kind of dangerous. Explosion in the make. Lets help him the art. Of brewing and fermentation.

It sounds like your process was good except the bottling after 2 weeks. If you don’t have a hydrometer which I wouldn’t use with a one gallon batch myself is not long enough. Bubbles mean nothing. Wait 3 weeks minimum before bottling. The won’t get better they may explode though. Keep them cold and drink them now or dump and try again. Only a one gallon batch so no great loss. Chalk it up

1 Like

Thanks for the info @BitterBella. I couldn’t imagine you skipped ahead in your process but I had to eliminate that specifically.

I agree that this batch may be a loss. I’d be very careful with these bottles as they may explode.

For the future, temperature control during fermentation has been mentioned. I know some guys use the swamp cooler method. Do a search here on the forum for info on that if you don’t have another method available. Another thing to look at is minimizing exposing your beer to oxygen during bottling. Try to keep any splashing or bubbles getting sucked in to your beer to a minimum as you bottle.

Everyone has had their “dang” moments so keep at it!

2 Likes

Thank you all for your sage advice! I’ll let you know how my next batch turns out :slight_smile:

1 Like