Ringwood help?

Please help! I brewed a Dogfishhead 60 minute clone 4 days ago using my standard all grain, batch sparge method. The recipe called for Ringwood yeast strain (never used before) which I made a starter for 3 days earlier. I followed all of my standard sanitary precautions. I went to check SG today from my bucket fermenter and noted STRONG chemical odor, almost burned my nose. OG was 1.065, today it was 1.020 and tasted nasty with a chemical taste much like the smell. Sorry I can't describe it better. I have never made a bad batch and am very concerned. Is it this strain of yeast and just has to go further or may this be my first bad batch?

What did you clean/sanitize your equipment with? Would you say it taste anything like butter popcorn?

I use a Sta San solution as I have in the past without problems. I wish I could say it smelled like butter or butterscotch but that would be a stretch.

I use ringwood yeast quite a bit and never had that smell/taste of chemicals. Bad smack pack?

Good luck!

Could be. The pack and starter had VERY strong aroma of butter/butterscotch. So much so I wondered how could this taste good in beer.

Hi all. Just to finish this thread I warmed up my fermenter and let the primary sit for 20 days to let the diacetyl burn off. When i racked to the secondary the aroma was improved. After 3 weeks in the secondary i kegged. The aroma was still unique as was the taste. Not bad just different. The yeast taste is somewhat like Dogfish 60 on steroids. I don't think I will use this strain for a while.

I have just started to brew and find posts like this encouraging. No matter how bad it smells, wait a while and it will still be drinkable.