New brew, weird issues

Started a brew last Wednesday, recipe is as follows:

3lbs Amber Extract
3lbs Extra Light Extract
1oz Tettnanger - 60min
1oz Saaz - 15min
3lbs Honey - 2min
White Labs American Ale Yeast

Fermentation did not officially begin until early morning Saturday morning and has continuted to bubble up until today. (A steady hiccup every 2-3 seconds) I forgot to pull my yeast out the full couple of hours beforehand, so the warm up time was maybe 30 minutes, but it wasn't a huge temperature shock between that and the wort when I pitched and aerated; however, the smell coming out of my fermenting bucket smells like beer, but it has a funky other smell coming out of it as well. It does smell of beer and honey but it is a strong, almost 'funky' smell. Does it sound like the batch is ruined? I haven't had the courage to pull the lid off because I didn't want to expose it or screw up the fermentation.

I had to leave town, so I told my girlfriend to keep an eye on it and if it had not started to bubble as of Saturday morning to repitch with some Nottingham's but as noted earlier it had started. My plan was to keep this batch in the primary for a week until fermentation had stopped and then siphon to a secondary for 2-weeks. I'm kinda nervous, what do you gurus think?

I wouldn't worry just yet. Fermentation was delayed since you didn't make a yeast starter which is pretty simple so you should do one next time to avoid the delay. As for the smell, not sure what funky means but my wort smells a little strange in the beginning, not sure if I would call it funky. I would pop the top off to take a look, don't be too worried about causing an infection by taking the lid off, just don't leave it off too long.

Yeast produces some funky smells...wait until you get one that's sulphuric...oowwww! Man, she'll insist it's you and you'll have to sleep on the couch...

Thanks for the prompt replies!

Popping the lid off with active fermentation won't cause a problem though? Seems logical, so i'll give it a try and see how its doing then and can gauge it more accurately. While i'm at it, i'll take a new hydrometer reading to see how its progressed. OG was 1.070!

As for the smell, my girlfriend already made a remark about it. I think her phrase was "It smelled like farts" or something along those lines, haha.

If that's what it smelled like, then I'd say everything is going as normal.

3lbs Honey

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You're going to need to stray from the normal 1-2-3 week schedual with this beer. With 3lbs of honey in it it's going to ferment slow, very slow. You may be looking at something more like 1-2-4 months

That's a big beer! You are looking at a longer fermentation, as Pumbaa said. Keep your eye on it, and make sure fermentation continues and doesn't stall on you. Slow and steady would be a great thing here.

And yes, "smells like farts" is probably a good thing during fermentation. My teenagers came in the house on Sunday afternoon (brewday!) gagging and making inconsiderate remarks about the stench in my kitchen. I consider it a job well done. (apparently there are people who cannot stand the smell of boiled hops and wort- imagine!). As long as it smells like beer, and yeasty, you'll be fine.

Lorena

Agh..

Well, I popped the lid off today as someone here had mentioned that I do and I was quite appalled by the look on the top of the beer. Pictures are listed below and what do you folks wager it is now? Look like spoilage to you or is this normal? The smell is quite pungent and offensive to the nose.

Image 1:


Image 2:


Hole is where I dropped my hydrometer in, gravity was reading 1.040 down from 1.070 SG. The ring was down about a 1/2" from the side of the bucket. Its a olive green color with brown spots in it. Tell me its not ruined?

I don't see anything that necessarily indicates infection. It looks like a fairly normal krauesen. There is a lot of green. Can you tell us what kind of hops you used (pellet or whole leaf?) and did you strain the hops somehow before you put it in the primary fermenter?

Oops! Sorry, I used pellet hops and did not strain off before they went into the primary. My inital thoughts upon looking at the krausen was that it was remnants of the hops because I did not strain it.

MriswitH said:

Oops! Sorry, I used pellet hops and did not strain off before they went into the primary. My inital thoughts upon looking at the krausen was that it was remnants of the hops because I did not strain it.

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Exactly! I immediately thought you used pellets and did not strain it. This would account for both the color of the krauesen and the funky smell (probably.)

Your beer is fine. Relax and know you'll have one delicious, and hoppy, beer come tasting time!

You'll definitely want to use a secondary for that puppy, though. Rack it off that stuff when the time is right.

I don't strain and I've never had green krausen. Then again I've only done 7 batches and I don't always pop the top. When did you add the 0 minute hops, right after you took it off the burner or after you had it in the fermenter? Or maybe you accidentally added the dry hops to the primary instead of the secondary? I don't recall seeing a recipe posted in this thread but maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks again for the replies!

I plan on racking it off as soon as I can to get it off the junk thats floating on top and to get rid of some extra stuff that the primary doesn't catch. Even if it goes slow, by any luck i'll be able to rack it by the end of the weekend or mid-week next week then i'll leave it in the secondary for a couple of weeks.

todd_k: The hop schedule was Tettnanger at 60 minutes and Saaz at 15 minutes. I did not add any after the 15 minute boil marker or into the primary bucket.

I was just rather surprised at everything. I've spent a lot of time reading on this forum and another brewing forum and haven't seen anything that compares and being rather new (2nd batch) it was intimidating. You guys don't fail to impress though; thanks again!