Young beer or infection?

[DarrenSL]

Hi all. I'm back to brewing after a 2 year hiatus! Brewed the Red Brick Rye from MM on Sunday. I want to dry hop just before the primary fermentation ends so took a sample this evening to check on progress. Surprisingly (given that the fermentation looked slow from the airlock bubbles) it's already at 1.010 (from 1.049 after 4 days) but the beer tastes terrible. I know it's nowhere near ready but I wasn't expecting this. Its a really thin, dry, lemon taste, with no malt coming through at all. I don't think I've ever tried beer this young before but generally young/green beer is described as having an apple flavour from the acetaldehyde. This tastes nothing like apples to me!

Is it possible for an infection to out compete 200 bn yeast cells in just 4 days? Any infections I've had in the past tend to show through gradually after a few weeks.

Of course, I'm going to wait and give it time but it is playing on my mind. I'm also wondering whether to save my pack of Chinook, wouldn't want to waste them on a bad batch. :-/

 

[An Ankoù]

the beer tastes terrible. I know it's nowhere near ready but I wasn't expecting this. Its a really thin, dry, lemon taste, with no malt coming through at all.

No reason to think anything's amiss at this stage. Not sure what you'd expect after 4 days in the fermenter, but when you say it tastes "terrible" what do you mean? Is it suphury, does it smell of drains or unexpectedly phenolic, or what?
Unless there's something obviously wrong, I'd give it a chance to sort itself out. Just looked at the recipe and there's not much to get excited about. I'd give it couple of days longer before chucking in the Chinook as there's a bit more attenuation to go, especially with US-05. If you think it's infected and gone off, then another couple of days should confirm that. Good luck.
Looking at the hop bill, it should be quite a nice beer without crucifying it with 100g of Chinook. If you're unsure, save the dry hops and just bottle it up. It might even be better.

 

[AXW123]

It’s basically still brewing so is unlikely to taste great. Unless there are other signs of infection such as a pellicle it’s probably fine. You really need to give it the proper time before it is ready. Even when it tastes thin to start with it often comes good in a month or two and I do find that dry hopping generally covers a multitude of sins!

 

[DarrenSL]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not expecting great tasting beer after 4 days . I've tasted plenty of worts over the years and generally find that by the end of fermentation, it tastes like beer just rough on the edges and needing more time. This 4 day old wort tastes nothing like beer but also doesn't have characteristic infection flavours or smells either (vinegar etc). I guess time will tell!

 

[Turt01]

Patience is your best friend

 

[TheOsprey]

I made a SMaSH with Mandarina hops and when I added it to the FV I genuinely thought it smelled like the zoo. 4 days later it still smelled the same. 6 weeks later, it's quite drinkable. Not amazing, but drinkable.