Is my wherry knackered?

[SiMania]

New year's eve 2014, I made up a wherry, chucked in 500g light spraymalt, didn't mix the whole kit very well but assumed it'd sort itself out.

it went off well, I left it 2 weeks as I usually do with my beers and c
100g sugar dissolved in water, cooled and added to the bottling bucket, syphoned in the wherry from the primary, let it rest a bit as I washed bottles.

Bottled it as normal and tried a wee sample. Mmmmm, fecking lovely, but it's not wherry, it's not got that english ale taste to it, I can only describe it as something Belgian, perhaps a touch of sourness but that Belgian yeasty flavour is certainly there. Now a Wherry with extra spraymalt and 2 different sachets of yeast should not be that dramatically different (I've only done 1 wherry before).å

So it's either......

1. A great funky combo I've got going which I should everyone about.
2. A beer that might just need a few weeks to condition,
3. An infection that will not get any worse and I've got 38 bottles of lovely Belgian style beer.
4. Going to turn into undrinkable pisswater in a few weeks and I need some new brewing gear.


???

[SiMania]

Further inspection reveals a fairly strong vinegar smell in the lid and a little bit of slime or what could be mould in the seal, it's one of these -



So I'm pretty sure it's something nasty in there. The fermenter is going to the skip and I'll replace it with a traditional one.

What about the bottles? Would a soak in oxi cleaner and a rinse in starsan sort them out of are they destined for the same place as the fermenter?

[adman1966]

Hi SiMania

First, it's worth giving the beer some more time to see how it develops. If it starts to go downhill, drink it as fast as you can! If it improves then happy days!

As for the fermenter, thoroughly clean it. Remove seals and soak them and make sure you get any dirt or gunk out of every nook and cranny. Use a good cleaner either specifically for brewing or Oxi for laundry. There are plenty of threads that cove cleaning. Bleach is also effective at the correct dilution.

Thoroughly rinse several times.

Sanitise with a recognised sanitiser. I use Starsan which is no rinse, this saves time and effort.

All of the above is good practice anyway and I'm probably only telling you what you already know.

As for the bottles, a good clean and they will be good to go for your next batch. If you are really concerned you could let them soak for an hour in bleach solution, that will kill any nasties that could be lurking but be sure to rinse thoroughly so remove any tainting from bleach residue.

Adam

[Monkeybrew]

You say that you used 2 different yeast sachets, but we're they both the same?

Cheers

MB

[SiMania]

No. One was the one that came with the wherry kit. the other was one from wilko.

Adam - I'd cleaned with oxi clean and sanitised with starsan. I think me fannying about with the stuck ferment did the dmage.

[SiMania]

I'll thoroughly clean the bottles but think I'll replace the FV

[SiMania]

I popped open a bottle from this batch tonight fully expecting it to be crap, but it wasn't bad at all. Not too dissimilar to the last wherry I did but with an ever so slight sour note to it. Result!