Wedding Hefeweizen - Sulfur/Bad Taste

So I no chilled a hefeweizen in corny kegs for my upcoming wedding. I tasted the wort before pitching and it tasted great. I then pitched an appropriate sized starter (mrmalty.com), and the beer reached terminal gravity 1.010 from 1.048 in about 4 days which seems about right.

I tasted it last night, and could definitely smell sulfur. I used 3068 and there are countless threads on that yeast throwing sulfur. I am also getting a kind of bad taste from the beer.

My question: What does sulfur taste like in beer? I can't tell if that's what I'm tasting or not?

Wort tasted great
Controlled Fermentation @ 62
Oxygenated for 3 mins with pure 02
Very healthy ferment (4 days)

Just trying to figure out this off flavor, and hoping it's sulfur but I'm not sure. I need to decide pronto if I am going to re-brew it?

I've had some slight sulfur smell in my hefe's pretty early and it's faded. I believe it's a by product of the fermentation. I've never tried to keg them before 2 weeks though. Others probably can chime in though.

Just reread your post and I've never tasted sulfur in the beer, but again I usually give them time. SO I'm no help. LOL

I had a bad sulfur smell in my hefe for the first two weeks. I'm now in primary week four and the airlock smells AWESOME. I think you just need to give it more time. I used 3068 as well, and it is known for the bad sulfur smell. When I tested the FG last week, it still had a slight sulfur smell, but it tasted awesome. I think you just need to give it time.

I appreciate the quick responses, does sulfur also throw a taste? If so, how could I identify if that's what I'm tasting?

Thanks!

I noticed a very strong sulfur-ish aroma in another homebrewer's German hefe. It had only been in the bottle for about a week or so. He called it bandaid, but I normally attribute that character to chlorine in the water. This, to me, seemed like a yeast byproduct. The taste had a little bit of it too, almost erring on the side of rotten bananas. I am willing to bet that has faded significantly, if not gone away completely. Next time I see him, I will hopefully get to taste it again. I've also experienced this in two of my ciders brewed a few years ago. Both of these batches had this character and it did eventually fade.

Interestingly enough, I tasted the gravity sample that had been sitting on my kitchen counter last night and it was MUCH better. I'm not sure it the container allowed for it to off gas, or the yeast chewed through the sulfur. Anyway, the fermenter still has the character so I have been running c02 through it to try scrub it daily. Hopefully this does it!

Alright, so I tried running the beer through a clean copper 3/8" tube into a glass and that didn't really work. I'm really puzzled!

I had convinced myself that I possibly had an infection, but I looked into the fermenter half way expecting to see a film on the top of my hefe, but it looked great?

We are at 3 weeks and still have a BAD sulfur flavor. At this point, would you rack it into kegs and try to scrub it out with CO2?

Again...
Pitched the right amount of yeast
Oxygenated for about 3 mins (10 gallon)
Fast ferment (Finished in 3-4 days)
No sign of infection

Also...
I made 2 other beers that weekend and none of them had signs of sulfur
I made a saison about a year ago, and realized today that it did have a sulfur taste. Still have some left and the taste is identical!
Even further back, I made a kolsch the exhibited the exact same taste (didn't know what it was at the time)
Why would sulfur be sticking around in my beers more than others?

Any advice or troubleshooting help would be very much appreciated.

The sulfur smell should leave the beer on its own. I assume you had an airlock on it or something while it "aged"? Or did you seal the keg? Maybe try increasing the temperature on it, with an airlock, see if the co2 coming out of the solution will take that sulfur smell with it.

So I had one of Derrin's fermentation kit's for a sanke on the it. It has a hose hooked up to the output that sits in a ball jar with starsan?

I've had this thing at near 70 degrees for a couple of weeks now. I even bubbled c02 to try to off gas some of the sulfur.

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Have the same smell and off taste. It came out of no where. Tastes great then this nappy after taste punches you in the mouth. Itsa hard taste to describe but its awful.

I Started a similar thread and most said its from chlorine. I cant get rid of the smell or taste. Is there away to avoid this or buy store water?

ElevenBrewCo, do you only get this with the Hefe yeast? Also, I built my own water for the hefeweizen based on braukaiser's recommendation. So for me, it can't be chlorine?

ElevenBrewCo said:

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Have the same smell and off taste. It came out of no where. Tastes great then this nappy after taste punches you in the mouth. Itsa hard taste to describe but its awful.

I Started a similar thread and most said its from chlorine. I cant get rid of the smell or taste. Is there away to avoid this or buy store water?

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Nope! Five different batches have been ruined and i just researched that and found out its my water softener!!! So im gonna by pass it and add campden tablets and try again

That's good news, the taste you are getting must be different than mine?

aarondrich said:

That's good news, the taste you are getting must be different than mine?

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I dont know. I cant even describe it. Primary smelt and tasted fine. After 4 days in the secondary this crazy smell and after taste appeared. I guess its bandaid like. Il go chew on one and taste my brew again. Haha. From what i researched it points to chloramines

I just came across this post and have a similiar issue. I have made several hefes
Before with no issues but this is the first from AG. I too have a sulfur smell well after fermenting and kegging. I even pulled the corny, popped the pressure valve, and let it go flat to try to off gas it. That helped but still has a smell and taste to it that is just off. The best way to describe the taste is that it almost has a well water taste (and no I didn't use well water). My temp fluctuated a bit due to weird weather but nothing out of tolerance range. I also used wyeast 3068.

Has anyone who posted here with similiar issues figured it out yet? suspicion seems to be chlorine... I did use tap water for this versus store bought spring water in the past. But i have Milwaukee city water and I don't think it's known for being high in chlorine. I will use spring water for the next batch tho to test the theory.

I've re brewed this and didn't have the sulfphur flavor but have no idea what was the cause. One thing I didn't do was aerate with pure O2, does anyone else do this? Something makes me think it has to do with that?

I dont use O2. I use the old school pour back and forth between two buckets for aeration. Which is what I have done with all previous hefe batches. Unfortunately I have three variables at play, first Hefe from AG, first Hefe using city
Water, and also some temp fluctuations (but not out of tolerance)

I had this problem with my last hefe, it faded after a few weeks in the keg to almost undetectable levels.

I used WLP300 with the 30C method....pitched at 14C (57F) and fermented at 16C (62F).