Honey Beer Question - Infected?

[GSRman]

Monday night i made up a batch of self-styled canadian honey beer, basicly,

1x 1.7kg can of coopers canadian blonde
1kg of honey
350gms CSR brewing sugar.
10gms challenger hops boiled for 5 mins with the honey.

I pitched about 1L of wyeast 1084 irish ale starter,

Last night (thursday) i had a wiff of my airlock (which has been bubbling away consistantly since tuesday morning) and it smelt odd, sorta beery, but also a bit 'sour' for want of a better word.. almost citrousy.. it didn't have this smell a couple of days ago..

i got up this morning and had another smell, it smells different, not as potent, but i was a bit worried about it still so i thought i would do a gravity test, so i drained off a testable amount, managed to turn the tap completely the wrong way to turn it off.. cleaned up the mess and tested, it read 1028ish, now it only had a starting gravity of 1042 but im now not so sure that the starting gravity was correct... its a 23L batch...

I tasted it, and it still was a bit sweet, and didn't taste *BAD* but im still not sure what to think..

do you think my SG reading is correct with those ingredients?

isn't it fermenting a bit slow?

its been sitting at 18 deg mostly, however the first night it dropped to 16...

 

[GMK]

GSRman

Sounds fgine to me.
You normally get one smell for the 1st stage of ferment - like as the yeast reproduces aerobically.

You then get a different smell - slightly tarty, sour etc as the yeast goes thru the second stage - anerobically producing alcohol.

Hope this helps

 

[GSRman]

i guess this smell is normally covered by the hoppy smell, but i haven't got that with this (its going to need some in the secondary)

Incidentally, i was thinking of boiling 15G of saaz in a half-litre of water for 5 mins or so, and then straining and adding just the water.. so i dont have the filtering out the hops problem.. think it will work ok?

 

[GMK]

IMO - Hops boiled in only 1/2 ltr of water..i think you would be wasting them.
Once the water has reached saturation point with the hops- no more will be absorbed.

Also, are you adding the hops for flavour/aroma or for bittering.

I think 1/2 hour is too long for aroma/flavour and not long enough and in enough water to achieve bittering.

I would dry hop in the secondary. I can make you a pre keg filter with a racking tube - come round saturday and pick one up...

Hope this helps

 

[GSRman]

well i only want a bit more flavouring (and because i have a heap more variety in hops now, and i wanna play), i think i have a bit of a plan as far as filtering goes anyway.

 

[GMK]

well i only want a bit more flavouring (and because i have a heap more variety in hops now, and i wanna play), i think i have a bit of a plan as far as filtering goes anyway.

Ok,

When you are ready - please share the filtering idea around.

 

[GSRman]

i feel testing is required....