duncanpurvis
New Member
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2012
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi there, I'm just in the midst of my first batch of home brew. Its a Munton's Pilsner Liquid Extract. I followed the instructions to the letter. I started fermentation around September 20th, just over 2 weeks ago. Everything has been going spot on.... Excellent fermentation, very vigorous and it subsided after about 48 hours. Did an hydromoter test and it came out at 1.08, which is exactly what the instructions indicated. It smelled awesome and tasted great, even for a flat, new beer. I was pretty excited about the finished product
I was going to move it to a secondary but most of the current advice I have read says just to leave in the primary for 3 weeks, which I was going to do. I did another hydrometer test about 4 days ago and it again read 1.08, which made me think it could even be ready for bottling. It sitll smelt and tasted good. I decided to leave it until next weekend (would have been about 3 weeks in the primary) and bottle it then.
But I checked on it today and it smells awful! not the yummy yeasty bear smell but some mix between bananas and paint thinner. I use those terms because they appear to be common smells. its hard to describe but it just smells "bad" and very "chemically". (i'm making up words)
My question is simply, has something gone wrong in the last little while? from what I have read, its often high fermentation temperatures that can lead to the off smells. I brew in our unfinished basement which is a pretty constant 18c (65f). I have a stick on thermometer and I was surprised at how warm the beer got during fermentation up to about 24 c (75f) but this was for about 12 hours or so. Was this the culprit? why would it all of a sudden begin to smell so badly after 2 weeks? I was going to simply stick to the plan and wait another week before bottling. Right thing to do, or any other suggestions?
thanks for the advice.
I was going to move it to a secondary but most of the current advice I have read says just to leave in the primary for 3 weeks, which I was going to do. I did another hydrometer test about 4 days ago and it again read 1.08, which made me think it could even be ready for bottling. It sitll smelt and tasted good. I decided to leave it until next weekend (would have been about 3 weeks in the primary) and bottle it then.
But I checked on it today and it smells awful! not the yummy yeasty bear smell but some mix between bananas and paint thinner. I use those terms because they appear to be common smells. its hard to describe but it just smells "bad" and very "chemically". (i'm making up words)
My question is simply, has something gone wrong in the last little while? from what I have read, its often high fermentation temperatures that can lead to the off smells. I brew in our unfinished basement which is a pretty constant 18c (65f). I have a stick on thermometer and I was surprised at how warm the beer got during fermentation up to about 24 c (75f) but this was for about 12 hours or so. Was this the culprit? why would it all of a sudden begin to smell so badly after 2 weeks? I was going to simply stick to the plan and wait another week before bottling. Right thing to do, or any other suggestions?
thanks for the advice.