Sulfur smell coming out of my carboy

Hi,

I have a Belgian ale kit that I got from morebeer.com, I brewed this one 3 weeks ago and decided to get a whiff of the brew. I opened up the lock and suddenly a really strong sulfur smell rushed out, then quickly dissipated. This was the first time I opened the airlock, since pitching the yeast.

I gave it another whiff the next day and it smelled normal - like beer nothing weird. It actually smelled pretty good. However, I've been reading that sulfer-smells usually entail an infection if its not a lager.

So I looked at the beer a little closely and I see these stuff on the top of my wort, its extremely thin, its covering about 30% on the top of my carboy. It doesn't seem to be growing, it looks really thin, almost like a thin, colorless/hazy flake(s) on the top of my wort. I didn't pick this up sooner because I didn't notice it on my wort, its almost hidden if you don't shine a light on it. I don't know if those are yeast rafts or krausen that managed to make it on top of my wort or worse an infection *gulp*

Here is a pic of it, it was a pain in the ass to take but if you look you'll see this white haze on top of the fermentor, let me know what you think.

My fermentation temp is pretty high, its at 78, I'm using White Labs Trappist Ale yeast. Keep in mind this has been fermenting for a little more than 3 weeks.

Just curious, have you ever taken a CO2 blast up the nose before? I recently discovered this and thought something had gone bad. It was just the layer created from fermentation...

Some Belgian yeast strains have been known to produce a lot of sulphur. That is very normal. What yeast did you use? As for the "film" on top of your beer, doesn't look like an infection to me although I've never had one before. knock on wood.

Unfortunately the picture is pretty bad. Fermenting at 3 weeks is kinda long if you mean actual fermentation or primary conditioning? Have you taken a gravity and is it done?

Sulfur is a normal byproduct during active fermentation with some strains but to get that at 3 weeks?, not sure, maybe someone else has a better opinion-maybe a better pic?

This was posted by someone else in another thread. "Fermentation is a nasty dirty filthy business", or something along those lines. It's not an infection it's normal and nothing to worry about. It will turn out wonderful.

Sulphur is a normal scent for some yeasts. Looks like yeast/hop junk, not infection.

Relax.

And three weeks isn't terribly long for a Belgian.

duboman said:

Unfortunately the picture is pretty bad. Fermenting at 3 weeks is kinda long if you mean actual fermentation or primary conditioning? Have you taken a gravity and is it done?

Sulfur is a normal byproduct during active fermentation with some strains but to get that at 3 weeks?, not sure, maybe someone else has a better opinion-maybe a better pic?

Click to expand...

I'm telling ya, its so hard to get a picture of the stuff because its so thin and colorless. I've tried different angles, lighting, flash etc, this is the best I could get, however I'm no photographer as you can see lol

For the fermentation, I just pitched the yeast in the primary and let it ferment for 3 weeks without moving it to a secondary (essentially, I pitched, aerated and forgot about the beer). I used the White Labs Trappist Ale WLP500 yeast. The beer had a pretty good fermentation for the first 3-4 days, then it slowed down.

So after 3 weeks of leaving the beer alone, I just popped open the stopper to get a whiff and bam it hit me, then it quickly disappeared, hasn't returned since.

I tried getting a sample to test my ABV but my turkey baster can't get deep enough to get a sample and I don't have a wine-thief so I'm flying blind on this one. So I am thinking another 1-2 weeks of fermentation time, then bottle?

If it is that hard to see, it can't be anything.

terrible pictures lol. but dont worry your just fine the smell is normal and typical for most belgian strains. most wits you are going to want to drink young. the sulfur smell will fade usually pretty quickly but the more time the better.

Isn't the sulfur smell normal for that yeast? :cross:

Yeah, I've had a few batches smell like sulfur while fermenting. It's normal, don't worry about it.

I remember someone once said on this forum, "If you smell that coming out of your airlock, then it's not in your beer anymore!"