Beer Forum

I am currently working on a batch of Kolsch using the recipe from BCS. I brewed 12 days ago and just racked to secondary. It started with a gravity of 1.054 and now is at 1.020. I am still getting a tiny bit of activity in the airlock. It is minimal but seems to be very regular. I noticed a slight sour taste and was wondering if that was something that should go away in time(hopefully) or have I somehow screwed this beer up. It started fermenting at about 62F and then we had a crazy weather swing and got up to 68 and then went back down to 64. Weather where I live has been wacky to say the least. Anybody have any ideas about where the sour taste could be coming from and if it might go away?

most likely your temperature swings caused the yeast to floc out, and the sourness you are tasting are by products from the yeast that haven't been re consumed. Try heating that beer back up and keeping it steady.

would a heating pad be something to think about? I know agitating the beer will out the yeast back into suspensino for a bit, but will they do any work or will they just settle back out?

Also, don't judge a beer being done fermenting by the time an airlock burps.....Use a hydrometer, or refractometer to check the gravity.....it's done, when the right tools say it's done!

bazookazilla wrote:Anybody have any ideas about where the sour taste could be coming from and if it might go away?

I did two beers in a row with the White Labs Kölsch yeast a while back and noticed that both had a peculiar (but not necessarily bad) funky, fruity flavor. I don't mean to say that it was like a brett funk or anything, I just don't know how else to describe it. The first batch was fermented higher (68) than the second (65) and had a bit more of this flavor.

Once bottled and kept in the fridge for a few weeks, this flavor had diminished or perhaps become much more incorporated into the overall flavor of the beer. Not that this answers the cause question, but just my experience with the yeast. Perhaps it may help. Give it time.

I got back in town today (after being gone 14 days) and checked on the Kolsch. It was 54 degrees, 1.015 and has become pretty damn clear. I'm gonna try and warm it back up to about 70 and see what happens. If I can get it back up to about 70 degrees should the yeast start working again? I need to get it down to about 1.010 or 1.011.

The sourness seems to be pretty much gone BTW

It's come up to about 65F and I am getting a little activity in the airlock. Is this probably just CO2 coming out of solution as the beer warms or am I possibly getting some yeast activity?