[Sca-cooks] sour beer question

grizly grizly at mindspring.com
Wed Jul 26 11:04:35 PDT 2006



-----Original Message-----
I have in my garage a case and a half of what was intended to be braggot
and is instead a rather miserable failure. [Note that it is not *my*
miserable failure--I am in no way a brewer.] So my questions are: what
does alegar actually taste like, is what I have actually alegar, and can I
use this stuff in cooking or should I just pour it all out and recycle the
bottles to some brewer of my acquaintance?

Many thanks,
Margaret FitzWilliam> > > > > > > > > >

Two very common infections in beer (no known pathogens as of 1995 could live
in beer ) include lactobacilus and acetobacter.  Both of these will sour
your beer and make it rather unpalletable.  The acetobacter is what will
give you alegar, and is very different from lactic infection.  The
appearance of the aceto- infection will be the same as if you had introduced
a vinegar mother into a liquid.  You get a somewhat slick layer on top, and
it has little tails dipping down.  I recommend rading up on vinegar mothers
and their appearance . .. that will give you a hint.  Acetic acid has a
different taste than lactic acid, but it is hard to describe in an email.
Lambics (Belgian sour ales) intenionally use lactobacili to innoculate their
beers, IIRC.


If you have little white "globs" floating arround, you might have something
altogether different and all too common when I was first starting brewing.
I suspect it to be fungal in nature, though I am no microbiologist.


niccolo difrancesco




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