All my brews have eternal donkey farts

[Drinksahoy]

Mainly ciders but even other juices with no apple in them.

No matter what yeast I use. I follow directions from others to a T.

The only think I can think of is that I'm fermenting too cold (my house is set to 69 but the brews always measure out to about 60F)

Any ideas?? Will it go away? Some have been sitting in the secondary for a month and still haven't got better.

 

[rhys333]

Can you describe the flavor and aroma of donkey farts?

 

[Drewed]

My guess is sulfer-ish smell. Usually a result from a stressed ferment. Do you use nuiternts?

 

[Drinksahoy]

I do use yeast energizer every time and sometimes even yeast nutrient in addition to that. I have made 2 batches of white cherry grap juice that fermented with not a trace of bad smells and I made this exactly the same way as everything else but everything else comes out smelling like someone put their dirty socks in it.

 

[Maylar]

Cold is good, but you want yeast nutrient not energizer.

 

[mikerlynch26]

Every time I've made cider I get the sulfur smell, described elsewhere here as "Rhino Farts." I don't add anything to my cider, just juice and wine yeast. I've had a couple instances where I didn't degas sufficiently and the sulfur smell stuck around in the finished product, not only as aroma but as flavor as well. I just had to dump a batch because of it. I typically ferment around 60-65.

So I didn't come up against that again, I purchased some yeast energizer, not realizing it's different from yeast nutrient. I dosed my latest three gallon batch with 3 teaspoons, which now I believe might be too much. I'm still getting the sulfur smell when I rouse the fermenter. Is this just a function of apple juice in general? Is using energizer detrimental vs nutrient?

Sorry, thread hijack, but it's in the same spirit as the OPs question

 

[Maylar]

Yeast needs nitrogen. Apple juice has limited nitrogen. When the available nitrogen runs out, the yeast get stressed and start breaking down certain amino acids to extract nitrogen. Hydrogen Sulfide gas (H2S) is a byproduct of that. Rhino farts.

Fermenting at the low end of the yeast's temperature range slows down the ferment and makes the available nitrogen last longer. If you can ferment at 50-55°F you won't get any H2S (this is also yeast dependent).

At warmer temperatures, you need to add nitrogen. I make cider at 60-65° and with generic yeast nutrient I've never had sulfur.

As for nutrient v.s. energizer, they're not the same thing: https://www.midwestsupplies.com/yeast-energizer-vs-yeast-nutrient

 

[bernardsmith]

Some yeasts are known for their production of hydrogen sulfide so my question is what yeast are you using? For cider I would recommend 71B, but typically the problem is stressed yeast. The only fruit that has been cultivated to provide yeast with all the nutrients they need is wine grapes. All other fruit - and certainly honey - you need to assume is deficient in nutrients (it's like a diet of chocolate and ice-cream - it will provide all the calories you need to do all the work you do... but pretty soon you are going to be malnourished).
One possible solution to remove the hydrogen sulfide is to aerate the cider or wine. That allows the gas to be dispelled. If that does not work then you might consider racking through a filter made from copper wool (the kind of scrubber you might buy in a supermarket to clean pots). The sulfur will bind with the copper and produce copper sulfate and the hydrogen will bind with the oxygen to produce water. Copper sulfate in such tiny quantities is not dangerous.

 

[MarkKF]

Cold is good, but you want yeast nutrient not energizer.

I've never used energizer. I use nutrient every time. I also make a starter of just juice for the first 24 hrs. I ferment at 58-62(64) deg. F.

 

[thekraken]

"Eternal Donkey Farts" new band name, I called it!

 

[Drewed]

AS the lights dim the crowd starts to chant, "E.D.F!!! E.D.F!!!..." Suddenly out of the darkness comes a power chord of hellacious volume followed by the driving beat from a bass drum..... lol

It is easiest to think as Nutrient as food (provides nutrients!) and energizer as coffee. Sure, you can live on coffee, but for how long? And drink enough of it and you will get the E.D.Fs as well!

 

[Drinksahoy]

I use 71B for meads and get no smell farts when I do 5 gallons but even my mead in a one gallon made exactly the same way had a little bit of it.
I just don't know what to do.

 

[Drinksahoy]

Lmao EDF I like it that's the new name of my cider. But yeah I'll switch to using more nutrient and less energizer and see if that helps.