damn... it smells like funky feet

well the other night I took my first reading and it smelled kinda funky and tasted a bit odd. Now I didn't think much of it and figured it was the krausen since it was still fermenting pretty good. Tonight I take a reading and and damn the smell has gotten worse and the taste is not good, pretty much like stanky feet or some pungent unpleasant aroma. Also there are some odd looking circular things floating on top that don't look like anything I have encountered to date. Any chance this will clear up once racked to the secondary? perhaps a massive dry hopping? I hate to dry hop if this beer is ruined.

Post the recipe and procedure and maybe we can see what it might be.

9lbs 2 Row
2lbs Vienna
8oz Crytsal 10
8oz Crystal 60

.50 oz Summit FWH
.50 oz Summit 15
.50 oz Summit 5

I double batch sparged with my igloo 12 gallon MLT with a CPVC manifold and hit my temps, drained to my primary fermenting bucket since it had markings on it. Transfered my three runnings to my kettle with minimal aeration. After boiling I ran it all through my sanitized CFC into my primary fermenter which had been cleaned and sanitized with star san then dripped dry. After that I aerated in my kitchen with an air stone and pure oxygen. The stone was dipped in star san and then ran for a 30 seconds or so. After that I just buttoned up my primary with a sanitized lid and attached my blow off tube and stuck it in the corner, it didn't start to bubble for about 14 hours.

The smell is hard for me to define, it just smells like something that has gone bad, maybe food that sat out in the sun too long. I will take a pic of the stuff floating on top, it may have been he reamaining krausen but I don't think so.

I just wonder if something got in it while it was in the garage or maybe in the kitchen.. That or didn't thoroughly sanitize the surgical tubing that was on the cold side of my CFC.

Hi,
Not sure exactly what funky feet might smell like but here's some possibilities for DMS which is pretty rotten (from http://brewwiki.com/index.php/Troubleshooting):

DMS (dimethylsulfide): Cooked cabbage or sweet cornlike aroma.

* High Levels: High-moisture malt, especially six row varieties
* High Levels: bacterial contamination of wort.
* Low Levels: Use of two row English malt
* High Levels: Under pitching of yeast.
* High Levels: Bacterially infected yeast slurry.
* Low Levels: Longer boil will diminish DMS
* High Levels: Oversparging at low temperatures (especially lower than 160 degrees
* High Levels: Bacteria from equipment.
* High Levels: Introduction of unfiltered co2 produced by fermentation. Bottle priming will produce small amounts.
* High Levels: Covered pot during boil.

Cheers,
Brad

One thing not mentioned is the stone. Being that you just soaked it 30 seconds may not be enough for it. Being that it is very porous it can harbor bacteria very easily. If you think about it the stone is used to aerate and is in wort which has a lot of sugar and that sugar if not removed right away is in the stone and if stored with bacteria present will multiply within the stone. A quick splash in Starsan may not get into all the nooks and crannies of the stone. You can see how this would lead directly to disaster. I always boil my stone in a small pan to loosen any solids and sanitize and then soak in Starsan for at least 20 minutes. This way I know it is not harboring any nastiness. Another thing to watch closely is your hands. Make sure everything you touch is sanitary or you have to sanitize your hands again. This is how most beer gets infected. You have to constantly be on guard. I know all this sounds over kill but believe me, it works and it's necessary.

What I do, is when soaking in star san, I get some in the tube for the stone. I then hook it up to an air pump and a sanitize filter, and push the liquid out through the airstone, while it aerates the starsan, also makes it nice and foamy, stretches the starsan further and makes it easier to get big pieces without making 5gallons of starsan.

Another point to cover would be the CF chiller. If you forgot to rinse after the last batch and it had dried malt inside then that would have had deposits of infected malt and if you don't run hot water through it with a pump it would definately infect the new beer. All hoses are suspect too. I always clean in hot PBW and rinse well and hang them up to drip dry immediately after brewing. All my buckets get the same treatment too. I turn them upside down to dry. Wet areas that don't get dry are places for bacteria to get estabolished.

This was the first time I used the cfc and ran some boiling water through it first then some starsan, and left the starsan in there until I was ready. It could have been the aeration stone or maybe even my hands, it was going on midnight when I was aerating so I may have slacked on the hands.

Is there anything you can do with the smell/taste? Will it go away if I rack to the secondary and let it set for a while or am I screwed?

Once beer is infected, you are screwed. Next time you will be much more aware of it and will do fine. It should only take one bad batch to make you realize how important all this cleaning and disinfecting is but I see posts here weekly so some have not heard the word and need to experiance it for themselves. I know you feel bad about it but once great beer is made by you all this will be a distant bad memory.

post the picture when you get the chance. Starsan needs 2 minutes of contact time to disinfect and then if you were even to touch the stone before letting it touch the beer you have to resanitize. You are in luck though because other than tasting terrible, i dont believe anything that can harm you can live in fermented beer...atleast im under that impression. A tossed beer is a learning experience. Sanatize better next time.

As for the chiller, i use an immersion chiller so i can avoide the problem of sanatising the inside. They are infamous for being very hard to clean

Here it is, doesn't look like anything I have had yet using safale 05.

To be honest i have had krauzen appear somewhat like this before once it dies down but it SHOULD NOT smell bad. it should smell like beer or the yeasty smell. If it does smell bad i would say you probably ruined the beer but dont toss it yet on the off chance its not. You can always do that later, and maybe someone else on here knows how you can save it. Good luck

check out this link. The one you should look at is the dirty diaper smell on the bottom.
http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=462

At this point I am just going to rack it to the secondary and let it chill out for a couple weeks. I have a few extra 5 gallon carboys laying around so its not going to cramp my style too much. The smell is really hard to define, but you know it when you sniff it that something is not right.

let it sit. obviously try to leave as much of the junk as you can when you rack but just toss later if it doesnt clear up. Again im pretty sure nothing can grow in fermented beer that can cause you to get sick. It just tastes terrible. However if it didint ferment properly and theres not alcohol in there then thats a different problem.

Have you taken a gravity reading? If not take one when you rack.

It went from 1.058 to 1.012 in about 7 days so there is plenty of alcohol just the smell/taste. If i can get it to even fade to barely noticeable, I would then just dry hop it and see if I can mask the smell/taste.

stever said:

It went from 1.058 to 1.012 in about 7 days so there is plenty of alcohol just the smell/taste. If i can get it to even fade to barely noticeable, I would then just dry hop it and see if I can mask the smell/taste.

Click to expand...

you can try but the prospect of wasting the hops comes into play. I would just toss it unless you really think its going to fade because hops are expensive. If it smells that bad its trying to tell you something....some infections are not bad for example Bret (i dont know enough other than that its another yeast)...but they dont usually make it smell terrible. Then again i could be wrong.

If by smelly feet you mean a cheesy smell it could be old hops. Probably unlikely if you bought your ingredients from a good source and stored them properly but some varieties of hops have a cheesy smell when they go bad.