Is it supposed to smell like this?

Hi all! So this is my first post and my first couple of batches which are fermenting side by side. They are two 2.5 gallon APA extract batches with s-04 yeast, one is almost two weeks old and the other is just a few days.

I have searched and read FAQs and I don't want to make this a "is my beer infected" post , but I can't help it! I need some advice...

The fermentation started fine, with nice krauzen and bubbling during the first 30 hours. I am using a fermenter with a spigot and I took a couple of samples and both batches smell awful with a bit of rotten eggs, a bunch of a kombucha-like smell and one faint tiny smell of beer in the distant background.

I had read about a week it should taste like flat beer but the taste is sour, definitely not any good. I can taste the beer in there but it is nothing but an after taste.

I made the two batches separately and both smell similar, the older one smells more, also the beer is full of white floating things which I assume are yeast.

Soo... Is my beer infected? I still intend to go all the way through to bottle conditioning in another week, hoping the smell will go away, but maybe I should cut my losses and try again...

Thanks a lot!

Rotten eggs is not a good smell and if the beer tastes sour than yeah I would say you got something in there. I would try again and focus harder on sanitation. What kind of yeast did you use and did you make a starter or revive the yeast? Some lager yeasts give off a sulfer smell during fermentation. If you do have a contamination issue and you bottle it you could be making bombs so be careful.

Rotten eggs is not a bad smell to have, many yeast produce sulphur, especially some strains of hefeweizen.

The larger concern is a sour taste as that signals a possible infection but again, it could also be a byproduct of the sulphur you're smelling.
If the beers are still fermenting then let them finish and clear and sample again

Thanks. I am using Safale s-04 yeast and using Star San for sanitization. So this is not one of those let it ferment another week situation, right? How should a 2 week old beer taste/smell?

Do you take the spigots off and take them apart and clean them between brews? There are a lot of nooks and crannies in those spigots that soaking alone can't get to. Sounds like you do indeed have an infection based on the sour taste, and the spigots could be the culprit.

Sorry, I'm going to emphatically disagree with the responses suggesting there's an infection here. I think the beer just isn't done yet. Everything the OP has described is pretty common.

Sulfur/rotten egg smells are very common during normal fermentation. And if you think that's bad, wait until you experience the dreaded "rhino fart" smell that still produces perfectly good beer.

As for the sour flavor, yes it "could" be an infection. But I'm putting my money on it just being green beer. A week into fermentation, I have tasted green apple, yeast/bread and vinegar in my samples. The one thing I have NEVER tasted is week-old fermenting beer that tasted like plain old flat beer.

And yes, the white floating things are yeast rafts which indicate that active fermentation is done ... but you are right to keep the beer in fermentation for conditioning for 3 weeks or so.

raindogmx: I think you're fine. My advice would be to assume everything is fine, relax and have a beer. Check your gravity over the next 2 weeks. If it has reached terminal FG then fermentation is done. After 3 weeks in fermentation, taste it again. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Even if you're not sure, bottle it and give it 3-4 weeks. You can always store the carbonating bottles in a Rubbermaid bin if you're worried about bottle bombs ... but I don't think you have any reason to worry at all.

Thank you! I can't see how this foul liquid is ever going to become a drinkable beer or even just drinkable, but I will listen to your advice, shawnbou and duboman. It's not like I have anything to do with those fermenters until my next set of ingredients arrive so it might as well just get good in a couple of weeks.

Thanks to the guys who suggested it's a dumper, you have encouraged me to go on with the batch now that I have nothing to lose.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I took a gravity reading a few days ago and it was unexpectedly low! I don't remember what it was but it was below the target gravity. Does this mean anything at all? Maybe I took the reading wrong.

What temperature is it fermenting at? S-04 can get pretty funky above 70 degrees.

75 degrees going by the stick on thermometer in the fermenters. Maybe that's the cause?

raindogmx said:

75 degrees going by the stick on thermometer in the fermenters. Maybe that's the cause?

Click to expand...

ya, that's pretty warm, active fermentation can actually be 5-10 degrees higher

You need to control your temperatures better if you want to produce good beer.

duboman said:

ya, that's pretty warm, active fermentation can actually be 5-10 degrees higher

You need to control your temperatures better if you want to produce good beer.

Click to expand...

Oh... but it has always been 75 degrees or so since I pitched which is pretty much room temperature... I mean, these are my first two batches and I never considered anything more than leaving the fermenter in a dark room. What can I do?

I'm on my phone now so I can't find a link easily, but do a forum search for "swamp cooler". Basically a tub of cool water that you sit the entire fermenter in and swap out ice packs (cheap alternative: frozen water bottles) as needed to keep the temperature down. There are other options to it like adding a fan or wet t-shirt but that's the gist.

I used a swamp cooler for a couple of years until I decided to invest in a chest freezer with external thermostat. The swamp cooler is a little more "hands on" but is cheap and works pretty well.

Awesome, will look it up. Can it help my current batches?

raindogmx said:

Awesome, will look it up. Can it help my current batches?

Click to expand...

No. Its most crucial during the first 3 or 4 days of fermentation.

Yeah, I have to concur. I've never been much of a S-04 fan, but it gets especially fruity/weird over 70 degrees. Any yeast aside from a few specialty products will get weird at 75, though. I usually ferment in the basement, which stays pretty cool even in the summer, but I have used the tub of water, and just swapped 2-liter bottles of water between the tub and the freezer for a few days.

Not to comment on the rest but I've never had a "rotten egg" smell from fermenting beer. Cider and wine, yes. That smell would worry me.

You know, I actually do not smell the rotten egg, it's my wife who does. It's true it doesn't smell good at all, but I can't really say it does smell like rotten egg/sulfur. My son tasted it and deemed it's "getting there"... But what does he know, he's only 5...

Haha, that was a joke. He's old enough.

As said before, those spigots are bug traps. The main body consists of 2 barrels in which the inner one turns inside the one that has the threads for the nut. That space in between can harbor bugs. You need to soak the spigot in very hot water for 30 seconds to be able to push them apart. Clean well with tube brushes, and sanitize. Assemble wet. That rubber washer can get nasty too, plus there are threads that are hard to clean.

Most yeasts, including S-04 can throw off some smelly gasses, it's quite normal. The sour taste however is not, but could be just green/half fermented beer if you don't know what to taste for.

For the first batch I soaked the spigot in Star San for a good while. The second one I jauat sprayed heavily.

It is true that I have no idea of what I am doing less so of how the green beer should taste. I am gong to test it gain on the weekend when I was supposed to be bottling it but maybe I'll just leave it another week in the primary.

Do you know why would I have got a lower gravity reading than my target gravity? Could it be I didnt measure correctly or is it further indication of something wrong?

raindogmx said:

For the first batch I soaked the spigot in Star San for a good while. The second one I jauat sprayed heavily.

It is true that I have no idea of what I am doing less so of how the green beer should taste. I am gong to test it gain on the weekend when I was supposed to be bottling it but maybe I'll just leave it another week in the primary.

Do you know why would I have got a lower gravity reading than my target gravity? Could it be I didnt measure correctly or is it further indication of something wrong?

Click to expand...

What was your OG reading? What was the target OG for the recipe? How far off was your final gravity reading from the target FG? Did the recipe your used (which I'm assuming is where you got the target FG from) call for a different yeast than the one you used? Different yeast strains will consume different amounts of the available sugars and other conditions (e.g. pitching rate, level of wort oxygenation, fermentation temperature, etc.) could impact the FG without anything being wrong.

On the surface, I don't think having a lower FG than the target FG would point to there being anything wrong with the beer. It just means that for whatever reason the yeast were able to consume more of the sugars in the wort than the recipe anticipated. I suppose there's a remote chance that you have some contamination and that whatever bonus critters are in the beer are consuming some of the remaining sugars (perhaps ever unfermentable sugars that the yeast couldn't deal with), but I think that's pretty darn unlikely. I don't think I've ever heard of that sort of thing happening...

Since you don't have any other use for your fermenters right now, I'd say let it go a bit longer and see what happens. It'll either settle down and be drinkable or it won't, but in either case you've learned something and will be a better brewer for it.

+1 on posting OG/FG. We like quantitative statements

You're making 2.5 gallon batches. What kind of fermentors are you using? What kind of spigot is it? Perhaps you can enlighten us with a picture. I sorta imagined you're using bottling buckets. They have spigots.

A quick picture of the inside of the fermentor can help too in spotting irregularities. There should be no krausen left on the 2 week old beer.

Soaking anything in Starsan does not clean it. And you can't sanitize unless it's clean first. Spigots need to be taken apart totally, and brushed clean with a detergent (PBW), then sanitized.

SEABrewer said:

On the surface, I don't think having a lower FG than the target FG would point to there being anything wrong with the beer. It just means that for whatever reason the yeast were able to consume more of the sugars in the wort than the recipe anticipated. I suppose there's a remote chance that you have some contamination and that whatever bonus critters are in the beer are consuming some of the remaining sugars (perhaps ever unfermentable sugars that the yeast couldn't deal with), but I think that's pretty darn unlikely. I don't think I've ever heard of that sort of thing happening...

Click to expand...

To clarify, I've certainly heard of beers getting contaminated with various critters, I just don't think I've ever heard of those critters impacting FG. Unless the critter in question was a wild yeast, which I suppose could result in the smell/tastes you describe and impact the FG...

Out of curiosity, where do you live, raindogmx?

Thanks. My expected OG was 1.055 but the actual OG was 1.053. The FG I got from Brewer's Friend was 1.016 and I just took one reading and it's 1.009 or maybe 1.008. Isn't that a lot? The recipe I followed was that from a kit, so I assume it was the right yeast (s-04). Other people have pointed out my temperature may be too high at 75 degrees, so maybe that's it?

Actually I started sipping from the hydrometer tube and it actually tastes kind of not too bad... I can definitely smell bananas now... I can see this getting better in a week... I shouldn't be drinking at 11:00 am...

raindogmx said:

Thanks. My expected OG was 1.055 but the actual OG was 1.053. The FG I got from Brewer's Friend was 1.016 and I just took one reading and it's 1.009 or maybe 1.008. Isn't that a lot? The recipe I followed was that from a kit, so I assume it was the right yeast (s-04). Other people have pointed out my temperature may be too high at 75 degrees, so maybe that's it?

Actually I started sipping from the hydrometer tube and it actually tastes kind of not too bad... I can definitely smell bananas now... I can see this getting better in a week... I shouldn't be drinking at 11:00 am...

Click to expand...

The difference in your actual OG vs. expected OG is pretty much in the noise. As far as the FG differences, I suppose it depends on how you define "a lot". Hitting the target OG and FG would give you 5.12% ABV while your measured OG and FG give you 5.91%. If you're going to err, that seems like the right direction.

Seriously, though, I don't think that's a big enough difference to get too worried about. It's possible the warmer fermentation temperature accounted for it. Or you had really healthy yeast. Or a really good batch of extract with lots of fermentables.

One other side topic I wanted to mention is that you typically need to adjust your gravity readings based on the temperature of the wort/beer. Hydrometers are calibrated to be accurate at roughly 60 degrees Fahrenheit and you need to make relatively minor adjustments depending on actual temperature. Assuming you were always measuring at the same 75 degrees, your readings would be off, but always by the same amount.

Check out http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixA.html for more info...

It's great that your beer in improving with time. Every batch is a learning experience.

@IslandLizard I al using a BrewDemon fermenter, like this one. I am not very comfortable opening it to take a picture but I am going to be doing bottle conditioning in a few days so I can take the pic then. However, I can tell you there is no more krauzen there and the smell and taste is actually getting better. Thanks for the advice about washing the equipment, I didn't do it because it was new but that was wrong.

@SEABrewer I live in Mexico! And I had forgotten about hydrometer adjustment. I adjusted the OG reading but not this one. Anyway, if its nothing but some extra kick then I'm totally fine with it. The beer is actually getting better by the hour, smell, taste, all improving so I think it may be fine and I just panicked because of my inexperience. Now I just need to make sure my "testing" doesn't leave me without any beer to bottle...

raindogmx said:

Thanks. My expected OG was 1.055 but the actual OG was 1.053. The FG I got from Brewer's Friend was 1.016 and I just took one reading and it's 1.009 or maybe 1.008. Isn't that a lot? The recipe I followed was that from a kit, so I assume it was the right yeast (s-04). Other people have pointed out my temperature may be too high at 75 degrees, so maybe that's it?

Actually I started sipping from the hydrometer tube and it actually tastes kind of not too bad... I can definitely smell bananas now... I can see this getting better in a week... I shouldn't be drinking at 11:00 am...

Click to expand...

If well aerated and nutrient rich wort i have had s-04 hit 86% attenuation on a og in the 1.051 range.

Its supoosed to be 75-80% i think.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

If well aerated and nutrient rich wort i have had s-04 hit 86% attenuation on a og in the 1.051 range.

Its supoosed to be 75-80% i think.

Click to expand...

Well, I did aereate it very, very vigorously: I read some Safale instructions that said to spread the yeast evenly over the wort surface and let it there for 30 minutes and then stir it up. I did it with a lot of dedication.

You lose a lot of yeast cells that way. Better to rehydrate first. Check out their instructions for craft brewers.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

You lose a lot of yeast cells that way. Better to rehydrate first. Check out their instructions for craft brewers.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Yep, I didn't do it that way on my second batch.

Well, I bottled and drank a couple of beers after a week in the bottle. It came out OK. It's fairly strong and more bitter than I expected but it is a good beer all things considered. I think I should have added more water to the wort. The smell is not gone but it receded a lot. It doesn't seem to be a problem, no infection, all good.

I have learned a lot from these first two batches but now I have way too much beer so I have to drink it before I can brew again. Thanks a lot for your help!

This has nothing to do with answering the OP because numerous people have already contributed sound advice. I'm just stating that it would be awesome if they followed through and improved upon Smell-O-Vision that was created back in the 50's/60's. Someone could post what the smell was and give us an actual sample!

Yes, these are the things I think about on a regular basis.

raindogmx said:

I have learned a lot from these first two batches but now I have way too much beer so I have to drink it before I can brew again. Thanks a lot for your help!

Click to expand...

There's no such thing as too much beer. Get another batch started so it will be ready by the time you finish drinking these.