Mash Going Sour

pasul

Hi guys,

I have a problem. My mash stops fermenting after 24 hours and it goes very sour (PH = 3,5).

Yesterday I made a wheat mash and I put it in two seperate barrels with air lock. Fermentation started well (I used distillers yeast), today one barrel is going well and the other one has gone bad. I had this problem twice now in the past few weeks and never before. I don't know what the problem might be, because I use the same technic and ingredients from the beginning.

Thanks for all the advice.

richard

Sounds like a hygiene problem ???

CothermanDistilling

first question - is your mash boiled, and if so how quickly and cleanly do you cool it?

my guess - sanitation exacerbated by temperature... probably those, with a small chance that dry yeast has foreign microbes on it from the drying process.. why I use liquid yeast in my meads and anything else without hops in it..

I get 2 weeks with my boiled wort 'beer' using dry yeast from a sealed brick before it starts going a bit sour... but that is why they use hops in beer....

pasul

@richard said: Sounds like a hygiene problem ???

Hi, all barrels an equipment is sterilized with 94% alcohol

pasul

@CothermanDistilling said: first question - is your mash boiled, and if so how quickly and cleanly do you cool it?

my guess - sanitation exacerbated by temperature... probably those, with a small chance that dry yeast has foreign microbes on it from the drying process.. why I use liquid yeast in my meads and anything else without hops in it..

I get 2 weeks with my boiled wort 'beer' using dry yeast from a sealed brick before it starts going a bit sour... but that is why they use hops in beer....

Hi, mash isn't boiled i just leave it overnight in a sealed barrel , work well so far :D , and i made over 120 barrels.

zymurgybob

Your stillhouse may have come down with a bug, some new wild infection that you may have to deal with in the future. A solution will look like all of what you've been told by others. We once had such an infection, and tightening up our cleaning, sanitation, and chilling solved it, without having to boil our beer, for which I was grateful.

pasul

Thank you bob , i will try to cool down the mash faster an cleaning with stronger cleaning solution , is it posible that are more infections in the summer than in the winter.

grim

Grain is pretty filthy...

Want to culture a ton of microbes? Put a couple of handfuls of malt in some warm water with a little sugar and nutrient, wait till morning.

Lacto-central.

zymurgybob

@pasul said: Thank you bob , i will try to cool down the mash faster an cleaning with stronger cleaning solution , is it posible that are more infections in the summer than in the winter.

I forgot to mention that StarSan is a great sanitizer, and if you also have a cheap jug of phosphoric acid cleaner to keep your StarSan solution below about pH 2.9, a bucket of solution lasts pretty much forever. And yes, I'd expect easier infection in the summer.