Nottingham, sulfur aroma... documenting my journey

So last week I allowed SWMBO to brew an irish red "on her own." I did the recipe, mashing, and advisory work, and she was very proud. We fermented it on Notty, which kicked off within 6 hours and fermented at a very reasonable 68F. Last night I took a sample and found it was down from 1.058 to 1.012, and boasted a putrid, unbearable aroma and flavor of sulfur.

I've done a lot of forum searching and found a lot of people have complained of sulfur aroma when using Notty. I know it's temporary, and have faith in Notty as some of my favorite commercial breweries use it as a house yeast (Dark Horse <3). I feel like cataloging this one for any future brewers who are worried and end up searching keywords NOTTINGHAM and SULFUR.

I'm going to give it 2 weeks in primary, sample, and if the sulfur hasn't disappeared, give it 2 weeks in secondary. If on another sample I've got sulfur I will try something more dramatic (force overcarb and blowoff to get rid of dissolved gas?) and report back.

To seal the deal, I'm brewing a second, larger beer (probably a wee heavy) on the cake, all of this in defiance of the first off flavor I've ever encountered in beer (not counting following Papazian's dreadful recommendation of 1 cup of blackstrap molasses in a small porter).

I will report back. Wish me luck.

Over 400 gallons of beer among other things on Nottingham and not a single example where I had any off smells at all. Though I have never made an irish red.

Montrachet however.....

im using Nottingham for the first time tomorrow, should i not?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Nottingham. Some people and some recipes are going to have different results, but I would be doing you a great disservice if I did not whole heatedly encourage you to use Nottingham tomorrow as planned. It's a great yeast and produces some of the best results you can get.

Its all my HBS had left for yeast so i will be using it. Thanks!

Out of interest how long did it take for the sulfur smell to disappear?

I've only had 1 experience of notty smelling weird, and the beer still came out great

Sorry for not responding earlier, but someone bumping the thread gave me an email reminder.

I am happy to report the awful sulfur/sewage aroma that accompanied the red was totally gone inside 3 weeks. It was by far my best beer to date (granted, it's the only recipe I have repeated).

Since then, though, I've knocked that beer out of its top spot with an American wheat / kolsch hybrid. Muahaha.