Fermentation smells like Sulphur

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Methose

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Ok, so I'm new -meaning I'm prone to the: oh noes, uh ohs, and in general have not yet adapted to the RDWHAHB philosophy (though I'm trying).

I brewed a Wheat based IPA with Honey as thus:

Recipe specifics:

Style: Imperial IPA
Batch size: 5.0 gal
Boil volume: 6.0 gal
OG: 1.074
FG: 1.019
Bitterness (IBU): 142.0
Color (SRM): 6.9
ABV: 7.3%

Grain/Sugars:

8.00 lb Wheat LME, 74.4%
2.00 lb Honey, 18.6%, boil for 5 min
0.50 lb Crystal 20L, 4.7%
0.25 lb Crystal 40L, 2.3%

Hops:

1.00 oz Warrior (AA 15.0%, Pellet) 60 min, 51.6 IBU
2.00 oz Simcoe (AA 13.2%, Pellet) 30 min, 70.0 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe (AA 13.2%, Pellet) 10 min, 16.5 IBU
1.00 oz Simcoe (AA 13.2%, Pellet) 2 min, 3.9 IBU


The story comes from the yeast. I originally grew up some PacMan from the dreggs of some Shakespear Stout, then pitched into another IPA (5 gal batch). I then salvaged the yeast using the method of pouring de-oxygenated water from boiled down (then cooled) mason jars, then poured the yeast back into these jars. I washed the yeast a few times, being as sanitary as an insanely OCD person. I then built up a 1 liter starter from one of the mason jars 2 days prior to brew day.
I thought I started to catch a whiff of some off smell in the starter only on the last few hours before brewing, but thought it was something else and pitched anyway.

The next day I went down there and had to add a blowoff tube because it was starting to come up into the airlock. Later that day, it was blowing like mad and the entire room smelled like my sewer pipe busted.

I read a great deal on this forum and others, and even consulted my LHBS.
There was a great range from either:
Infection to It's normal wait it out.
The decision I came to being the root cause was from Sulphur.

I tried just stirring with a cleaned and sanitized new piece of copper pipe, but it didn't remove the smell. So the next day (after advice from my LHBS), I just re-sanitized the copper pipe and dripped it in the bucket to stay for the rest of the primary fermentation period. They've been in there since 6-27-13.

What's the thoughts?
RDWHAHB?
Pitch the batch out?
Take out the copper pipe because I'm poisoning myself even further?
Splash rack to secondary?
 
If it smells like sewer gas it is hydrogen sulfide (rotting eggs). The good news is that this can be removed by exposure to copper. The bad news is that it is most likely the result of an infection and the beer is going to be a dumper.

If it smells a bit like rotten eggs but more like burnt matches the gas is sulfur dioxide. The bad news is that it does not react with copper. The good news is that it is very volatile and will pass out of the beer. This is also true for a modest amount of hydrogen sulfide (jungbuket).

In any event, waiting for some time to see if the smell dissipates seems a good idea.
 
does a picture help?

This is what it looked like when I added the copper pipe.

20130628_011338.jpg
 
Are the lighter spots in the picture clear bubbles coming through the krausen, or fuzzy mold. Too blurry on my phone.
 
If it smells like sewer gas it is hydrogen sulfide (rotting eggs). The good news is that this can be removed by exposure to copper. The bad news is that it is most likely the result of an infection and the beer is going to be a dumper.

If it smells a bit like rotten eggs but more like burnt matches the gas is sulfur dioxide. The bad news is that it does not react with copper. The good news is that it is very volatile and will pass out of the beer. This is also true for a modest amount of hydrogen sulfide (jungbuket).

In any event, waiting for some time to see if the smell dissipates seems a good idea.

So if it can be removed with copper, what's the point if it's due to infection and I should dump the batch?

It's gone from it's OG down to 1.012, which I guess means that it's done fermenting, but still smells (though certainly not as bad as at the initial 2-3 days).
Brewed on Sunday, 6-23-13
 
WLP051 smells like sulfur but makes great beer. I have a porter going right now. It could just be the yeast.
 
So is there a concern for the copper pipe sitting in my fermenter for multiple days?
 
Your process and your picture looks fine. What was your fermentation temp? Pacman can throw off some sulfur, I would just RDWHAHB.
 
Your process and your picture looks fine. What was your fermentation temp? Pacman can throw off some sulfur, I would just RDWHAHB.

The fermentation temp what about 77 maybe 75 at first but I got it down to about 72 at the end.
I guess I'll go ahead and take the pipe out tonight and see what it looks like at least. I just recently read some on copper poisoning so I'm a little concerned now for leaching as the beer is done at 1.012
 
Relax, it is most likely the yeast - give it some extra time to do its thing (say another week) then keg/bottle. Test and report back what you taste. More than likely if will be okay - especially after the dry hopping.

Be forewarned, I did a lager with wlp833 and caught a whiff of sulfur during the primary fermentation - being new to the brewing game, I could never not smell the slightest whiff when I was drinking the beer. Friends and family loved it, but I was too neurotic.

Relax, trust yourself and enjoy a great beer you just brewed. Fermentation throws off all sorts of off-smells.
 
Relax, it is most likely the yeast - give it some extra time to do its thing (say another week) then keg/bottle. Test and report back what you taste. More than likely if will be okay - especially after the dry hopping.

Be forewarned, I did a lager with wlp833 and caught a whiff of sulfur during the primary fermentation - being new to the brewing game, I could never not smell the slightest whiff when I was drinking the beer. Friends and family loved it, but I was too neurotic.

Relax, trust yourself and enjoy a great beer you just brewed. Fermentation throws off all sorts of off-smells.

I like your style; Thanks for the advice -I'll work on that relaxing thing.
 
So I removed the copper pipes, and they look crazy discolored.
In the pics, you can see the tip still has the original copper color, because it was submerged into the yeast cake. The oddest thing I see is that one side of the pipes seem to be a silverish color, and the other side seems to be a deep red. Maybe one was the top and one was the bottom?

I will say this, the beer smelled delicious! I've not been brave enough to taste it yet, but it smells good :rockin:
I'm thinking I will wait another week, then taste (if I'm brave enough), and if we're good then I'll bottle it up (not set up for kegging yet unfortunately).

Hopefully I've not been too neurotic and infected it by futzing with it too much.

20130701_221818.jpg
 
Might as well taste it at this point. In my experience, sulfur taste is not a bad as sulfur smell. You'll taste it, but it won't be repulsive. If it's infected, you'll probably know it and could make the decision not to bother kegging it at this point. I've had sulfur go away in a couple days and I've had occasions where it takes at least two weeks.
 
If the batch is indeed infected hydrogen sulfide isn't going to be the only problem.

If it's infected, you'll probably know it...

So how will I know?
I'll be honest, I've got a big concern for getting sick off some infection that I didn't know was there and I drink a bunch and end up with some food poisoning or something.
 
Supposedly ... and I'm no expert on this ... but apparently it's very unlikely to get sick off of infected beer. I assume it's largely due the the low pH and beer being generally inhospitable to pathogenic organisms. If you're afraid, you could taste, spit and gargle with listerine!

In any case, you'll find plenty of threads on here where the consensus seems to be that it would be safe.

Put simply, if it's infected with something unintended it won't taste right. If it's something that doesn't affect the flavor, then I guess, who cares?
 
Well as an update, it's been a few days after removing the pipes and when pressing on the bucket top a little bit, it no longer stinks like sulfur burping out of the airlock.

I'm wondering now about racking it to secondary, maybe splash racking it, as there is a slight smell to it though it' pretty faint at this point.

Some people have said that I should let it sit longer to let the yeast clean themselves up, and others have said to rack it off the cake. Any thoughts / general consensus?
 
A bit longer in the primary will not hurt and it may even help the flavor of your beer. When in doubt go an extra week - worse case you waste some time, but it may help the flavor of the beer.
 
Methose said:
...maybe splash racking it...

Please define. If "splash racking" means exactly what it sounds like, it sounds like a bad idea. But I'm a noob, so the fact that I don't recognize it doesn't make it bad.
 
Fermentation gives off all kinds of crazy smells. You'll hear discriptions that range from rotten fruit to rhino farts. I used to worry about these sorts of things when I first started as well. It just means you are passionate about what you are doing and care about the final product. Having said that, please learn to RDWHAHB. All of my early worries turned out to be unfounded, and usually the ones I worried about the most turned out the best in the end.

Experience will be your greatest teacher. Just please try to finalize with your final results so that when others read this they can learn from your experience as well. Cheers and good luck!
 
Please define. If "splash racking" means exactly what it sounds like, it sounds like a bad idea. But I'm a noob, so the fact that I don't recognize it doesn't make it bad.

I read several posts in regards to removing the sulfur and a few mentioned "splash racking" it, to off-gas the sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide which ever it may be.
I'm only assuming means to rack it and raise the siphon tube to the top of the secondary vessel, instead of keeping it as low to the bottom as possible. This does seem counter to any normal racking procedure where the point is to minimize contact with air, but seems like it would serve the purpose of forcing the gas to escape from the liquid.

I chose not to perform this action, but I suppose it would seem viable for the purpose -perhaps it would work well if you put a blanket of CO2 in the secondary first. I'm not set up for kegging so CO2 is not in my tool-set yet.
 
Fermentation gives off all kinds of crazy smells. You'll hear discriptions that range from rotten fruit to rhino farts. I used to worry about these sorts of things when I first started as well. It just means you are passionate about what you are doing and care about the final product. Having said that, please learn to RDWHAHB. All of my early worries turned out to be unfounded, and usually the ones I worried about the most turned out the best in the end.

Experience will be your greatest teacher. Just please try to finalize with your final results so that when others read this they can learn from your experience as well. Cheers and good luck!

Right on!
 
Well I racked it to secondary last Saturday (7-6-13). I tasted it and it was just fine, although it had the slightest hint of some off taste. My friend (who originally taught me to brew) was there with me and he tasted it an said he couldn't taste anything off at all. I put this to my brain playing tricks on my ole' factory because I was expecting sulfur.

Racked into glass carboy without attempting to splash, and dry hopped with another oz of Simoco, just tossed right in -no bag.

I'll let it sit till Thursday then bottle, I'm still an eager beaver so waiting that long hurts enough as is.

I'll post back to let you folks know the results.
 
Well I racked it to secondary last Saturday (7-6-13). I tasted it and it was just fine, although it had the slightest hint of some off taste. My friend (who originally taught me to brew) was there with me and he tasted it an said he couldn't taste anything off at all. I put this to my brain playing tricks on my ole' factory because I was expecting sulfur.

Racked into glass carboy without attempting to splash, and dry hopped with another oz of Simoco, just tossed right in -no bag.

I'll let it sit till Thursday then bottle, I'm still an eager beaver so waiting that long hurts enough as is.

I'll post back to let you folks know the results.

I have some smoked porter that's been in the bottle for months. If I think too hard about the smell WLP051 put off during fermentation, I almost can taste it. I think it's all in your mind.
 
As best I can remember, it turned out great. Methose is a buddy of mine (responsible for getting me into this hobby). I'll see if I can get him back here to post more detailed results.
 
Methose, how did the final product turn out?

Yes, the pipes did the trick. In fact I've saved them for future use of the exact same problem.
I would have liked to go the route of copper scrubbers inside the copper tubes (for more surface area), but I could not find a source for 100% pure copper scrubbers.

I agree with m3n00b's comment on the very slight possible taste, being in my mind as well. As Soulflow mentioned, none of my buddies could taste it, and I stopped noticing it after about 3 weeks or so after they completed bottle carbing.

Cheers, and hope it helps if you're having the problem!
:fro:
 
Thank you both. I have a little bit of cross between sulfur and banana coming off of my Summer Wheat. It seems to have blown off over the last 24 hours, but you always tend to be anxious at first. Sorry for having revived this thread, but you had some good info in there. Cheers and thank you for responding!
 
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