Do “smell” molecules get into your beer and do they have any effect?

[ipso]

I know that living organisms that might grow in wort “do not crawl”. (Something about Pasteur’s original Swan-necked flask still pristine in some French museum.) However, when you’re using a stir plate (or even when you’re not) there must be ingress/regress of air up under the tinfoil cover - air carrying oxygen into the beaker, and air carrying CO2 out of the beaker. I presume no bacteria or fungi (yeasts and molds) float up and under the tinfoil with this “air tide”, even with a 2” octagonal stir-bar roaring a cyclone beneath, or doors opening and closing and people rushing by. (Assume a 1L starter in a 2L conical beaker – and tinfoil lightly molded half way down the beaker.)

The actual question is more pointed: if you put your stir plate starter in one of your bathrooms, and your dufus wife takes a dump in the otherwise Clorox cleansed room [..and since she is so beautiful it smells like strawberry yogurt] will your starter beer in any way absorb or impart said [strawberry yogurt] smell? Presumably some of those molecules will get into the starter (since a fart can fill an entire room in seconds), but be completely innate within the brewing process, all the way through to your kegged/bottled beer. Presumably similar “smell molecules” in a garage brew room do the same (cut grass smell, auto exhaust, bug spray, cut wood sawdust smell, etc.) [Note – I’m not talking about an air-lock, I’m talking about a starter beaker with a lose tinfoil cover running half way down the beaker.] We breath this stuff all the time, so it’s not “bad” in the beer (because it does not multiply), it’s just delayed intake, but do these types of “smell molecules” have any known impact on the yeast/conditioning processes?

Is my wife’s dump – categorically - irrelevant to the starter and resultant brew?

 

[Darwin18]

I think you're over thinking this...

 

[mewithstewpid]

lol joke post right?

 

[Revvy]

I hope it's a joke....

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah. Besides,many yeasts produce some sauropod farts of their own that should combat those from a human size critter.

 

[phenry]

You mean volatiles? I really wouldn't be worried about anything humans exude ruining your beer. I'm not very well versed in poop science, but I would assume most things we gas out our rears are organic in nature and readily degrade. Now if you left your starter in a box built out of cheap grade plywood, you may have something to worry about with the high concentrations of formaldehyde.

 

[Chris1272]

Don't worry about it. From a pure microbiology stand point don't do your brewing in the bathroom. that being said a starter is going to produce CO2 that will have a constant flow of co2 that will not allow air to enter. secondly its on a bed of CO2 (heavier than air). the principle gas in flatulence is methane. (lighter than air) It would not penetrate a bed of CO2.

 

[TyTanium]

You could follow Mike David's "Take Some Advice" starter process, just to be safe.

 

[unionrdr]

Omg,don't even get TSA going again...

 

[EllisTX]

I fart constantly while brewing. I get zero fart gas aroma in my beers.

 

[IrregularPulse]

How dare your wife poop in your bathroom where you're starter is growing

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

You are definitely going to drink her ****.

 

[ipso]

I’m not worried at all. (Re-reading, I can see people imagining me a shaking noob – “HELP - is Iodophor killing my first batch!”.) It was much more of a “stoner question”. (If the universe is divided by three, will we all be 1/3 height or will 1/3 of us disappear?)

I should have used “pine tree smell” from the pine tree outside the open window – but the starter is in an unused extra bathroom – so it was a “valid” (if lackadaisical) hypothetical.

I find it interesting to think that within beer there exist countless trace elements.

@phenry – “volatiles” – much better than “smell molecules” – thanks. And your point about formaldehyde is interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatiles

@Chris1272 Thank you for the point about methane<oxygen<CO2.

Off topic, but I wonder if there are “mold beers”, like cheese, whereby growing things other than brewing specific yeast (as funky as they may be – some Belgian cave), but are purposefully added.

 

[unionrdr]

Idk,but I think my oderiphorous eminations get scared of the yeast's smells coming out of the airlock...

 

[LandoLincoln]

I tell you what. I have an experiment going on in my basement similar to this problem. This is a long story, but bear with me.

About a month ago I scored a nice big used chest freezer with the intention to turn it into a keezer. But it was so big that my friend and I couldn't get it into my basement. So we just left it in my garage until I had a chance to take the hinges and lid off and we could try again.

So this past weekend was our brew day and we needed to get the chest freezer out of the garage so we had room to brew. I took the lid off and LORDY WHAT IS THAT SMELL?!

The freezer didn't look that dirty inside when we bought it, but whatever it was, it was BAD. Like "take a cabbage and put it in a plastic bag and put it in your hot attic for the summer" bad. Anyway, we got it into the basement and I put the lid back on it.

So we made 12 gallons (2 carboys) of our latest brew that used WLP001 yeast, and according to the directions that yeast is supposed to begin fermentation in the 70-75 range and then after fermentation begins should stay in the 68-73 range. That's really freaking warm for my cold winter basement, but I put the carboys in my spare room in the basement and set the electric heater accordingly. I come back later that night and the electric heater just isn't cutting it. Time to go to plan B.

So I lifted the lid of the chest freezer and held my breath while I used some towels to try to get the nasty stuff out of the freezer, then loaded up the carboys into the chest freezer, put a small electric heater inside the freezer and then set my temp control device to monitor the inside temps.

Next morning, came downstairs to check on the progress, and...sure enough...we had too much wort in one of the carboys and it blew the carboy cap and airlock off the carboy, left a nice sploosh on the inside lid and about a cup of beer on the floor of the freezer. Cleaned off the carboy cap, put it back on and then hooked up a blowoff tube and jar of liquid. On the plus side, the beer explosion made the inside of the freezer smell a lot better.

SO ANYWAY...we had an open carboy of beer sitting in a really small really smelly space. AND there was a heated fan pushing air around in there as well. If that beer turns out okay, then I'm pretty darn confident that CO2 works wonders to keep bad odors out of fermenting beer. I'll post back in here in a few weeks.

 

[ipso]

@LandoLincoln - I love that kind of test. Please do return with results.


Follow-up question to Chris1272 (et al) – but isn’t the stir-plate adding more oxygen into the beer?, or is it just primarily evenly distributing the yeast within the preexisting oxygen? I’m re-thinking your post. And since, yes, a primary exudes CO2 exclusively, and thus no new oxygen comes back in through an air-lock (thus critical to aerate when you pitch), then maybe you’re right (and others), and zero additional environmental volatiles are being added to the beer during the starter brew process.

But – but – that means it’s equally important to oxygenate your starter up front. I assumed the stir-bar was doing that, but maybe not. Maybe the stir-plate has very little to do with re-oxygenating the starter (very counter intuitive.) And since I just boiled all the oxygen out, and ice bathed it in 7 min, there is little to no oxygen in there, so I should be shaking it really well first, just like my primary.

 

[Chris1272]

Well the purpose of the stir bar it so move the yeast around the wort to make sure they exposed to as much of it as possible. and not wait for brownian motion to bring the sugars to them to ferment. Its speeds up their rate of consumption and replication. most people bring a starter up to a boil for maybe 10 min at best to sanitize it. you are not boiling it for over an hour and driving off the naturally dissolved oxygen. so the need to aerate a starter is not the same as a full batch of beer. the stirbar will help dissolve any O2 in your flask when you add the starter but im inclined to believe that is negligible. after fermentation starts the outflow of co2 will push any air out and keep any outside air from coming in.

 

[greyhoundbrewing]

strawberry yogurt!!!!! hahaha she poops strawberry yogurt. its funny bc i work in a hospital. hahahahhaa.

on a serious note, i dont poop where i ferment or ferment where i poop

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

I know that living organisms that might grow in wort “do not crawl”. (Something about Pasteur’s original Swan-necked flask still pristine in some French museum.) However, when you’re using a stir plate (or even when you’re not) there must be ingress/regress of air up under the tinfoil cover - air carrying oxygen into the beaker, and air carrying CO2 out of the beaker. I presume no bacteria or fungi (yeasts and molds) float up and under the tinfoil with this “air tide”, even with a 2” octagonal stir-bar roaring a cyclone beneath, or doors opening and closing and people rushing by. (Assume a 1L starter in a 2L conical beaker – and tinfoil lightly molded half way down the beaker.)

The actual question is more pointed: if you put your stir plate starter in one of your bathrooms, and your dufus wife takes a dump in the otherwise Clorox cleansed room [..and since she is so beautiful it smells like strawberry yogurt] will your starter beer in any way absorb or impart said [strawberry yogurt] smell? Presumably some of those molecules will get into the starter (since a fart can fill an entire room in seconds), but be completely innate within the brewing process, all the way through to your kegged/bottled beer. Presumably similar “smell molecules” in a garage brew room do the same (cut grass smell, auto exhaust, bug spray, cut wood sawdust smell, etc.) [Note – I’m not talking about an air-lock, I’m talking about a starter beaker with a lose tinfoil cover running half way down the beaker.] We breath this stuff all the time, so it’s not “bad” in the beer (because it does not multiply), it’s just delayed intake, but do these types of “smell molecules” have any known impact on the yeast/conditioning processes?

Is my wife’s dump – categorically - irrelevant to the starter and resultant brew?

ummmmm..... first of, why is your starter in the bathroom in the first place? seems a strange place to keep it, especially since your expecting others to not use the bathroom. seems odd, why not just keep in on the counter in the kitchen or a shelf or somewhere other than the dirties room in the house. (really, clorox and all, the $h!tter is still dirtier than most of the rest of the house).
second, no offense to your wife, but if it's so bad that your worried your beer will taste like poo cuz she took a cr@p in the same room as the starter, your issues lie elsewhere, my friend.
lastly, assuming this thread is a joke and being the lover of a good laugh that i am, i'll bite. your starter being in the same vicinity as an odor won't make your beer smell like that odor. if that were the case, we'd all be in trouble. i have a starter of Kolsch yeast sitting across the room from me, i'm smoking a Camel and i just ripped off a nice one spawned from the two Maxwell St. polishes w/ extra onions and peppers i had for lunch. if my Alt ends up coming close to that smell, it may be the first beer in history to kill a man.

 

[gstrawn]

ok, well while reading this i really didn't know what to think, but i suppose ill do my best to answer anyways. As for the strawberry yogurt, i don't think it will get into the liquid, being that it is an aqueous solution and the sulfur compounds which make the strawberry yogurt smell so delightful are not very soluble in water so you should be good, but as for the "rotting cabbage in a ziplock bag in a hot attic" smell I can't really answer that, but I don't think it will have any affect as many "smell molecules are non-polar organic molecules and aren't very soluble in water. I say RDWHAHB

 

[LandoLincoln]

@LandoLincoln - I love that kind of test. Please do return with results.

Okay, both carboys have been tested and, as expected, there is no discernible difference in taste between the carboy that had the cap blown off and the carboy that did not. Those incredibly bad smells did nothing bad to the beer.

HOORAY, BEER!