My Root Beer stinks!! I give up.

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Stelmica

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I can't make it come out rite, it has this horrible smell everytime I don't know what I'm doing wrong.... I quiet...
 
If there's a really bad smell, there's probably some infection going on. Don't give up, just sanitize everything that touches the root beer and give it another try. If you've been using the same yeast each time, I would get some fresh yeast and see if that goes better. You're most likely just a few steps away from great root beer.
 
Why don't you tell us what your procedures are, possibly in a fair amount of detail, so we can give advice. Your prior posts/threads haven't really given us much to work with and what you've done, so for all we know, you could be doing anything and everything.

The fact that it smells means either some sort of fungus, or a lot of sulfur. What flavoring/syrup, what yeast (if any), what and how much water to syrup, how much sugar, what kind of sugar, which kinds of bottles, where the bottles have been, etc.
 
we used a 16 o z. bottle, that was a fresh bottle of drinking water.

1. 1/4 cup of sugar

2. One eight of a tsp of Fleischmanns Yeast

3. shake it

4. add water half way

5.add a 1/4 tbsp of McCormick Root Beer Concentrate

6. shake it until dissolved
Fill bottle with bottled water.
7.put cap on
 
Stelmica said:
we used a 16 o z. bottle, that was a fresh bottle of drinking water.

1. 1/4 cup of sugar

2. One eight of a tsp of Fleischmanns Yeast

3. shake it

4. add water half way

5.add a 1/4 tbsp of McCormick Root Beer Concentrate

6. shake it until dissolved
Fill bottle with bottled water.
7.put cap on.
I made this test bottle and it still came out bad, what am I doing wrong??
Bad sulfur smell..
 
Okay, so you're using baking yeast. That's supposed to work, but it will have a funky flavor, and it's more likely to be bad than fresh brewer's yeast. I recommend finding some wine yeast, champagne yeast is the standard. Have you used the Fleischmanns yeast each time? Was it kept cold at the store, and do you keep it in a refrigerator?

It would be insane to do it exactly the same way again and expect different results, but it will work if all the factors are right. So, keep changing stuff until it works. Definitely try real yeast first. There may well be a problem with the baking yeast, and even if you do get that to work, it will taste yeasty in a way that I really don't like.
 
Thanks for the tip I'll try again. I'll try some new yeast this weekend I need to make a trip to the wine store anyway. And yes I used the yeast from the store each time, they just keep it on the shelf. Not cold.
Hopefully that's the problem,
thanks again..
 
I've got the same sulfur smell in my root beer. I also used Flieshmans yeast from the grocery store. Only I made 4 gallons of it!

Does anyone know if this will go away with aging?

I used bottled spring water, clean and sanitized beer bottles (sanitized with an iodine type sanitizer) regular white granulated sugar from the store.

The extract was an old bottle of rainbows "homebrew" stuff. Probably 6-8 years old.

Thanks in advance:
Bob
 
:rockin:
I've got the same sulfur smell in my root beer. I also used Flieshmans yeast from the grocery store. Only I made 4 gallons of it!

Does anyone know if this will go away with aging?

I used bottled spring water, clean and sanitized beer bottles (sanitized with an iodine type sanitizer) regular white granulated sugar from the store.

The extract was an old bottle of rainbows "homebrew" stuff. Probably 6-8 years old.

Thanks in advance:
Bob

The old extract was probably the culprit, but using bread yeast didn't help! I would say it won't improve but you can hold onto it and see and hope for the best.
 
I used to occasionally get a sulfur quality in my rootbeer. This only happened when I was priming the stuff with yeast, these days I force carb. I used ale yeast and would still get this issue. I believe it was yeast related, possibly temp related. I'm not sure what it was. I moved on to 2 liter bottles and Carbonater caps. So, I never bothered to look into it further.
 
I've read that you should use ale yeast for fermentation. The reason you don't want to use champagne yeast is that champagne yeast has been developed to live at much higher pressures than ale yeast and your root beer can continue fermenting until the bottles explode. Although this *can* also happen with ale yeast, it is very rare and the conditions have to be just right (including glass of less than the best quality).
 
I've read that you should use ale yeast for fermentation. The reason you don't want to use champagne yeast is that champagne yeast has been developed to live at much higher pressures than ale yeast and your root beer can continue fermenting until the bottles explode. Although this *can* also happen with ale yeast, it is very rare and the conditions have to be just right (including glass of less than the best quality).

That's not true, though! Ale yeast can easily go to 9% and be just as explosive as wine yeast. It's not rare at all for the bottles to blow up if not chilled right away when it's carbed up. Lots of beer brewers who didn't bottle correctly can attest to that!
 
Bread yeast will ferment but will leave a nasty smell behind. You really want some form of brewing yeast.
 
homemak said:
Is it safe to drink?

I'm assuming your referring to the yeast? you'll always have some residual yeast in whatever you've brewed, so yes. I'd say it is.
 
The best yeast I've found for soda is champagne yeast- either Lalvin's EC-1118 or RedStar's Pasteur Champagne. A little spoonful is enough, and it's very neutral tasting.

Hmmm. I tried the champagne yeast from Red Star for a grape soda and got sulfur city and it still has not flocculated after 3 days at no more that 40F. I think the Premier Cuvee is the key here. I found the that champagne yeast is even advertised as "yeasty" by some online sellers' descriptives. I actually just used Fleishmann's myself for a simple rootbeer and it left no detectable bad flavors/aromas in it after a week.
 
Hey Guys,
I've had the same smell off of fermenting that you guys are talking about. The only way that I fixed this was with really good and thorough cleaning and sanitizing. I wash my spoons, bottles, caps, hands, counters, siphon, measuring cups, and leave a little in the sink with a cloth / paper towel in case I need it again for anything.

I picked up this powered sanitizer from my LHBS ... it was white and doesnt require extensive rinsing (big plus).

I'd say you are very close just work out the cleaning / disinfecting and I think you've got it made.

PS: I used fleishmanns yeast and it turns out smelling / tasting funky as opposed to other champagne or wine yeasts.
 
Not a sanitation issue for me. This is strictly a yeast issue with temps I believe is related to the strain. It's the right strain and temps that matter. I'm going to try another strain and ferment lower, maybe in the 60's.

Some yeast are notorious for sulfur production and this dissipates with time as I've experienced many times with brewing beer with certain strains. When it comes to soda there really is no "conditioning" to speak of. The only thing your doing when carbonating with yeast for soda is halting primary fermentation in it's tracks or severely limiting it's forward progress. Volatiles produced during this phase will likely not age away unless it was left to ferment out and condition, as with brewing beer, wine, or mead. This is why the sulfur in my soda may never go away. I could be wrong with that specific function but in this case the yeast is put to sleep and can't spend the time to "clean" up after itself. It's possible after a long cold phase that the yeast will be compact enough and with a perfect pour obtaining no sediment then maybe you will get a clean taste and aroma, maybe. I hope this is the case in the next week for my grape soda and if not, it's in the drain.
 

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