WLP029 yeast & sulfur smell

Hey all.

I have a batch of wheat ale going in the primary right now, and the first night of bubbling i thought I had spoiled it. It was producing this horrible sulfur smell. I couldnt figure out what I had done, then I remember that the White Labs German Kolsch yeast I used for it says this:

"The slight sulfur produced during fermentation will disappear with age." I was expecting slight sulfur. My wife and I have started referring to the smell as beer farts.

Anyway, will this smell and possible taste dissipate over time in the fermenter or will it go away while bottled? I am trying to figure out if I need to wait longer to bottle it, or how long I should wait once it is bottled,

Any help would be great!

Should go away with time, how long has it been in the fermentor?

it's only been in the fermenter a few days. Started the batch on Wednesday night. So it will go away while still in the fermenter?

It will go away. I have an Oktoberfest (WLP029) that has been in primary for 11 days, had a really strong sulfur smell for the first 3 or 4 days of active fermentation but has completely faded since. Im a new brewer and kind of freaked out about it at first but decided to just let the yeast do their thing and everything seems good now. The best advice I have heard and also the hardest to follow is be patient and give it time.

The technical term for this smell is "rhino farts".

But as others have said nothing to worry about. This yeast is known to produce this smell when fermenting. It does indeed go away.

Osamabinbbq said:

It will go away. I have an Oktoberfest (WLP029) that has been in primary for 11 days, had a really strong sulfur smell for the first 3 or 4 days of active fermentation but has completely faded since. Im a new brewer and kind of freaked out about it at first but decided to just let the yeast do their thing and everything seems good now. The best advice I have heard and also the hardest to follow is be patient and give it time.

Click to expand...

This. I used it in my okfast ale and it went away.

What temperature are you fermenting at? That actually has a lot to do with the production of sulfur out of these lager or pseudo-lager yeasts. If you are close to the high end of its range, it will take a bit to age out, but it will go away. The closer you are to the low end, the less sulfur production you will get out of it. Do yeast washing and use that for your next Kolsch. Make a semi-large starter and make sure you start out at the bottom end of the recommended fermentation temperature. After you do this, you will experience first hand the difference that fermentation temperatures make.

Also, whatever tastes/smells are there at bottling, those are the tastes/smells you will be stuck with (generally speaking). Also, during the aging process, the more yeast cells there are, the more chemicals that the yeast can reabsorb. This is why keeping on the cake for a full month before racking or bottling is not a terrible idea for beers that need to be aged.

And before autolysis comes up, that is from the yeast dying. Think about the expiration dates on the yeast packages for that. When hitting a steady final gravity, that's the equivalent to the manufacture date of the liquid yeast package. Depending on how healthy the yeast are, you have up to six months before the yeast die and begin to rupture (autolysis).