Burnt/plasticy/fuel smell??

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bluespark

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
Messages
417
Reaction score
28
I divided a 6 gallon carboy containing a clover traditional (18% ABV) into smaller carboys. For secondary I flavoured each separately, vanilla, orange spice, hibiscus, chocolate and strawberry. They have been sitting for over a month in secondary and are starting to clear(except the chocolate, but that's to be expected).

My issue is with the strawberry. I racked the traditional onto 3 lb frozen thawed strawberries, left for 7 days, then racked off and topped up with reserved must.

It smells... Like strawberry faintly, alcohol, and an over powering burnt/ plastic/ fuel ish smell. This smell started about two days into secondary.

-Why?
- the others smell great. Is this common with adding fruit to secondary for a melomel?
-Did I do something wrong?
 
Yeast is lalvins 1118.

70 degrees during fermentation, now being stored at 66.

All the others from this same batch smell incredible.

No signs of infection of any sort. The traditional base was brewed with step feeding and daily aeration for the first 6 days, along with two honey additions to reach the yeasts maximum tolerance.

No additives to the strawberries, just pure fruit.

Gravity 1.035 at transfer, now 1.020. I transferred the main batch to secondary when the ferment was obviously slowing down and significant lees had accumulated.
 
Update. Still a decent amount of bubbling going on, but the awful smell disappeared on its own. Go figure.
 
Update. Still a decent amount of bubbling going on, but the awful smell disappeared on its own. Go figure.

I've got a cinnamon cyser going with the same yeast(first time using 1118) and had the same thing happen. Went from a nice deep cinnamon apple scent to plastic though my gf said it smelt like Elmer's glue. Smell stuck around a while then poof went away. Have heard of others having similar instances with that.
 
Back
Top