What's that smell?

I recently used Nottingham for the first time in two different brews. Slightly more than two weeks later, I have two funky smelling beers. One is a smoky brown ale that smells a little like barbecued feet. The other is a strong ale that smells like caramel farts. The feet/fart smell is really similar between the two, and they don't share any ingredients but the 2-row I use and the notty. The ale tastes fine, but the other is meeeehhh. First attempt on both recipes though, so I contribute the flavor to that.

Fermented at 64 ambient, then was away for a few days and it rose to 68 ambient. Those smells were there within 48 hours of the start of fermentation on each batch, so I don't think it was temp.

Anyone else have this with Nottingham?

Unrelated but interesting, I brewed a Belgian strong ale with S-33(EDME strain) at 70* ambient, and I actually got lots of Belgian flavor despite the usual opinion that this yeast is incapable of that. So that's a thing.

Yes, Notty can smell bad at times but dont be concerned, it will go away. Go have a home brew...

Firewalker11 said:

Yes, Notty can smell bad at times but dont be concerned, it will go away. Go have a home brew...

Click to expand...

That's a great plan, actually should I leave it in primary longer or bottle condition to get rid of it?

Either one is fine but you will not "get rid of it", it will change all on its own, its just a byproduct of fermentation and is not the final "nose" of the beer. Once you have identical gravity readings for a few days in a row, cold crash it (I filter first form keg to keg) and then see what the smell is when you drink a sample.

I have a cider that smelled just the same as my socks after a hard day at work and its wonderful in the glass right now.

I agree with the above - just let it condition. I brewed a hef that had a strong... farty (?) smell after I bottled it... I considered dumping it a few times. Three months later, it is a very smooth, good smelling beer that I really enjoy. I wish I had left more bottles alone, instead of drinking them early on (with a sad frown) and muttering RDWHAHB.

I have brewed almost exclusively with Nottingham over my (admittedly short) brewing "career", and have never had any foul smells. That seems weird to me.

I start notty out at 62f and ramp it up after a week - always clean smelling!

I ferment with Nottingham at 60-62 and leave it at that temp the whole time.

Ive had fart smelling ferments dont know why. I think just like me the yeast make fart smell when stressed for any reason. I saw a post once that said i dont understand why people go sticking their noses around fermenting. It is a dirty stinky unpredictable process. I think there is some truth in that. Smell always went away completely and in short order. I just asked a question about fermenting and im afraid i know the answer i just gave it

Some yeasts produce sulfer more than others. That's probably what you are smelling. I call the rhino farts.

Dinosaur farts that go away with time & conditioning. I like the descriptions though!...

Yeah, ferment in the low 60's for Nottingham. Now us05 I start low 60's for a few days and then let it free rise to low 70's. Leaving it in primary longer could clean it up but next time stay low for notty.

Some of it will probably condition out or transform, but I think 64-68 ambient is too warm for Nottingham personally. If that was beer temp, it would be a different story. That's one of the reasons I stopped using Nottingham, the downside of not having your temp under control is just too great.

I just opened the fermenter and threw in some dry hops. I was expecting Centennial, I got musty. I hope it conditions well.

Update:

Both are now in bottles. The feet walked right out of my smoky brown, which is basically a mesquite bbq sandwich in a bottle now. The other was still a little gassy, but it had this amazing earthen/maple taste. Here's hoping it de-farts in bottles.