Stinky Hefe

I brewed a Hefe using the witches brew recipe (but added a little extra DME) and added extra hops at 15 min.

We used leaf hops but didn't realize that you needed a hop bag and the siphon kept getting clogged. So we had to drain the wort though a strainer (sanatized as best we could) and into the primary. It was a less than ideal situation.

We brewed it on 8/15/07 (6 days ago) and it is still bubbling every 5-10 seconds and has a good layer of krusen (sp?) on there.

But....the stuff coming out of the airlock smells pretty bad. All of our other brews have smelled like beer within 2 days or so.

Do you think I have an infection and how can I tell?

Wrey said:

But....the stuff coming out of the airlock smells pretty bad. All of our other brews have smelled like beer within 2 days or so.

Do you think I have an infection and how can I tell?

Click to expand...

Bad like how? Rotten eggs? Weizen yeast can smell like sulfur (rotten eggs) during fermentation, but it goes away. In fact, most beers change pretty dramatically during the yeast life cycle... a lot of transient flavors and aromas are there that will not end up in the finished beer.

If you do have an infection, it will be much more easy to ascertain after primary fermentation is done. Even then, you should wait to pass final judgement (I think) until bottling/kegging time. Sorry I don't have a better answer... I know it's hard not to be anxious after putting so much work into brewing. Good luck!

Give it time... RDWHAHB

The hefe has been in the primary for 16 days and it is still bubbling once every 5-7 seconds and still has a head on it.

Is this normal? It was pretty high gravity, I put in 7 pounds of DME. I haven't been able to take any readings since I don't have a thief at the moment.

Do I need to wait for the head to sink back in and the airlock to stop before bottleing?

You definitely don't want to bottle when it's fermenting- you'll have bottle bombs for sure. Use a santized turkey baster to pull a sample for an sg if you want to. I'd just leave it until the krausen falls and the bubbles slow way down, but the only way to know for sure is to check the sg.