This DMS thing is getting old.

I brewed a session strength saison that had mostly belgian pils malt and a little flaked wheat. I boiled for 90 minutes with no lid, and chilled rapidly with my immersion chiller. OG was 1.04 and fg after 2.5 weeks was 1.004 with wyeast 3711.

I just tasted a 2.5 week old hydrometer sample and it's got some serious canned corn flavor on the finish. I know the beer is super green, but is DMS something that the yeast will clean up and it should go away? I thought I took all the right step to get rid of this problem but it didn't work.

Way to early to be judging. If you did the things you say you did, it's not dms.


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The DMS should be cleaned up by the yeast towards the end of fermentation, what temperature are you fermenting this saison at? What were the specifics of your previous DMS problems? I would wait until there is no (or little) sign of DMS in the primary before proceeding. How is your sanitation?

COLObrewer said:

The DMS should be cleaned up by the yeast towards the end of fermentation, what temperature are you fermenting this saison at? What were the specifics of your previous DMS problems? I would wait until there is no (or little) sign of DMS in the primary before proceeding. How is your sanitation?

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I have dual stage temp control so I pitched at 62 and let it rise to 74 over the course of 5 days. From what I've read 3711 doesn't need the crazy high temps like other saison strains.

The first time I had dms was with a 100% belgian pils grainbill (patersbier) but I only did a 60minute boil on that one. I'm very uptight about sanitation, and everthing gets submerged in starsan. Could an infection cause dms flavors? There are no visible signs of infection, and if it were it would be my very first infected batch.

How vigorous is your boil when you make it?

I had DMS on a brew once that I believe was due to my propane burner running out of gas during a 90 minute boil on a 100% (or nearly) pilsner grain bill. I switched out tanks, but the boil was anemic for several minutes prior to running out completely and I think that was a major factor. I have made that recipe before and since and never had the DMS issue aside from that one time.

Rolly said:

. . . . Could an infection cause dms flavors? There are no visible signs of infection, and if it were it would be my very first infected batch.

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It's possible: http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html
but sounds like you have that covered, I'd just leave it in primary and it should clean up (unless you had an overly extended lag time), you may also raise the temp for a couple of days even though the yeast doesn't need it, but I have no experience with 3711.

I was reading about this in the wiki section of the site. It seems that DMS is tied to the modification process of malt. Overly modified malt will contain high levels of SMM, which is precursor for the production of DMS during the boil. Although it's unlikely the malt itself is the culprit, I might try looking into other places to buy your malt. Maybe you got a bad batch of malt. Anyhow, I really don't know what else it could be. Sounds like you did everything right.

I think that canned corn taste / smell is very common out of fermenters too. Once you get the beer cold and conditioned it'll be fine.

I fear DMS because I always think I smell it in fermenters, and it always goes away.

+1 on the rate of boil. I have always heard that a minimum of 8% per hour boil off rate is needed to drive off DMS. I have also heard that with pilsen malt around 15%/hour is a good rate to insure that your driving it off.

I had DMS problems before I did some brewery upgrades I would say that 2/3 of them eventually cleaned up. The other 1/3 though never did. Since I went to a massive burner with a stupid evaporation rate, I can't even taste it during fermentation.

What burner and what size batches? me too thinking about a bigger burner for the BK.

TrickyDick said:

What burner and what size batches? me too thinking about a bigger burner for the BK.

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I'm doing 5 gallon batches on a 60,000 BTU banjo burner. I started with 6.75 gallons and ended up with 5 gallons after a 90 min boil.