gxm

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I made batches of ciders this fall, one with Montrachet Redstar, and one with Safale S-04. I bought two gallons of flash pastuerized cider, and my beer sanitization "training" encouraged the addition of a campden tablet to each gallon.

Now, 6 weeks later, both batches still smell very strongly of sulphur, and I think they taste too sulphury to drink (though SWMBO drinks the hydro samples).
Both OG were 1.064 & FG of 1.000 & 1.001, so a little over 8%

After reading others experience, it seems like the smell should have gone away by now? Is there anything I can or should do?

Right now I'm just relaxing with my sulphur free homebrew

davebl

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Let it go. I let my first batch go for about 2 months, bottled with priming sugar. The smell stayed for a good month, then cleaned up. Is your cider still cloudy?

Those bottles have aged for 8 months now, and keep getting better and better.

i read where Apfelwine really smoothes out after a year.

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heyvail

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By adding campden tablets you added sulphur to the cider. Some yeast react with this producing the sulphor smell and others don't. I am not sure which ones do but a search would tell you. I have been making ciders for a couple of years and have never used campden tablets. I have even used the natural yeast from fresh pressed cider and it turned out OK. When you are pitching a dry yeast there are so many of them they will USUALLY out work and overwhelm anything else in there. Hope this helps

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Yooper

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I use campden all the time, and the sulfites disapate quickly. If you're smelling sulfur now, I don't think it's the campden tablets. It could be the smell of stressed yeast. As long as it's not H2S (rotten egg smell), then it'll go away and improve soon.

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Firstnten

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Once it's clear it seems smooth to me. I guess I could drink gasoline and not have a problem with it.

gxm

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Thanks for all the replies. I'll just forget about these ciders for a few months in a dark corner of the basement.

Hmmm...maybe I'll need to smell some rotten eggs. I think of rotten eggs as smelling like sulphur.

Yooper

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I have a better idea- why not make up a sulfite solution and then smell it? Dont' put your nose right over and inhale, but a gentle whiff. If you cider has a very slight sulfite smell, it'll improve.

If it's H2S, that's bad. Here's a blurb from Jack Keller's website about h2s:
Hydrogen Sulfide:
H2S for short, Hydrogen sulfide is produced in all wines by yeast combining with various forms of sulfur, but in excess creates an undesirable, rotten-egg-like smell in wine. If not corrected, the wine is ruined as the gas is transformed into mercaptans, with a skunky odor, and then disulfides, with a sewage smell.

You can try a technique called "splash racking" which is usually to be avoided. You can rack the cider, splashing it into the new carboy which may help disipate the H2S. After lots of splashing, though, you should re-sulfite. Once campden tablet per gallon (crushed and dissolved) would do it. This splash racking can force out any H2S if it's not too bad. It might save the cider.

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gxm

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That does sound easier than getting some rotten eggs. Thanks Yooper.

JedSmithBrewery

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Wait, I am in day 3 of my first ever fermentation ( a cider ) and I am getting a sulphur/rotten egg smell. What do I do now, will it dissapate or should I do something?

RugenBrau

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Yoop is probably right. I use Safale 04 all the time. It amazes me how fast it can change. You have to give it time. I have two 5 gallon batches that I started in the last month. One stinks to high heavan. The other did and is getting better. I just wish I knew how to keep my yeasties happy and unstressed. If I had to gues I would say the solution lies in a more consistent temperature control....but who knows

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