Scott Ickes
Grandmaster Brewer
Nickw said:Also just took a gravity reading and it dropped down to 1.016 in the last 2 days, about 4 days ago I moved the fermenter into the coolest room in the house, so my beer temp has probably dropped around 5 degrees C. Maybe the lager yeast was making my beer go weird? Still smells and tastes fine as well.
I made a ten gallon batch of a light version of Oud Bruin. Basically, I dialed back the malt and hops. My Original Gravity was 1.060 and my IBU's were 6.9. I made the batch for blending with other beers. I split it into two 5-gallon batches. I pitched Roselaire Yeast Blend into one and in the other I pitched Lactobacillus Brevis, as well as the dregs from two bottles of Jolly Pumpkin LaRoja.
Both batches formed a pellicle within three weeks. The Lacto/Jolly Pumpkin batch started souring within a month of brew day. The Roselaire batch was only a little farmyardy at six months, and wasn't sour. At 13 months, the Lacto/Jolly Pumpkin batch was puckeringly sour, so I used it for blending three other beers.
The Roselaire Batch at 13 months, was just starting to get sour, but was very one dimensional.
Currently (19 months after brew day), the blends are doing nicely and getting very complex. They are still in fermenters getting happier.
The Roselaire Batch is now a sweet tart sour bomb, but it was a much slower process than the Lacto/Jolly Pumpkin batch.
My point is that you may not notice much sourness or farmyard yet, but it "WILL" happen. The point that "Maine" is making, is that you don't want it to happen in the bottles! You want it to happen in the fermenters and you want it to run it's course and let the microbes use up all of the food that they can eat.
If this were my brew, I would just let it sit and get happy.
If you throw it out, you throw away $30 worth of ingredients. If you let it sit, go out and purchase another fermenter, so that you don't reduce your fermentation capacity by tying up one of your fermenters. That way, you can make clean beers still and 2 years from now you may end up bottling the best accidental beer you ever made.
Have patience!