"Solventy" smell - ruined batch???

Okay, so I took a sample from my secondary so I could see if I can start bottling this Friday. The beer smells kinda solventy. A magazine I have says this is ethyl acetate and is caused by "stressed yeast" or too high a fermentation temperature. While it's been a little warm in our place, it hasn't been too warm, but maybe.

Anyways, is it time to dump this batch down the sink? It doesn't seem like there would be anyway to recover from this. Or is there something that can be done.

Also, it's worth noting that this is the batch that started fermenting again after one week in the secondary.

Help! I'd really hate to throw this (or any) batch out!

Fusel alcohols and "solvent-ish" off flavors do not disappear with age. Taste it, and if it tastes like paint thinner, it's probably not worth keeping.

Yeah, it tastes pretty awful. I was hoping this was something I could just let age out.

Damn!

Here's an idea - boil a little for 5-10 minutes. If it tastes better after heating, use it for making beer bread, marinades, brats, etc. You'll lose the carbonation and alcohol, but you might be able to boil off some of those nasty flavors as well.

EDIT: When making beer bread, don't boil it first, just dump it into the mix straight from the bottle. If the flavors disappeared when you boil, they'll disappear when baking as well.

Thanks for the tip, but I don't think it'll be worth it. We make plenty of beer bread and brats, but I'm not about to store five gallons of bad beer just to cook with.

Yuri_Rage said:

Fusel alcohols and "solvent-ish" off flavors do not disappear with age. Taste it, and if it tastes like paint thinner, it's probably not worth keeping.

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I don't think it's a good thing to know what paint thinner tastes like

debtman7 said:

I don't think it's a good thing to know what paint thinner tastes like

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I'm pretty sure the taste is similar to the smell, i.e. terrible.

debtman7 said:

I don't think it's a good thing to know what paint thinner tastes like

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Take a look at all of my DIY projects...it doesn't take long before you've tried to siphon just about every liquid in the garage for one reason or another. Antifreeze has the most pleasant flavor - but it's still absolutely horrid. Not sure why dogs and cats like it.

...and I don't worry about lactobacillus in my paint thinner, so yes, I start with my mouth...