Rhino farts in secondary?

[Parsaver]

So I brewed a batch of cider and I went through primary fermentation with zero problems. I put some fresh strawberries in and I've gone through the proper steps to make sure they were pasteurized in primary. During fermentation the fermentation took all the color and flavor out which was to be expected but everything else went off perfectly.

When transferred over the secondary Carboy I added 4 more pounds of frozen strawberries that I had blended into a puree and I racked the cider on top of it. I had a little bit of cider left over so I put it in a separate container and put it in the fridge to cold crash it. I was cold crashing everything else because I didn't want the strawberries to be fermented I just wanted to impart the flavor into the cider. Tonight I decidedecides to open up the little small bottle that I had set aside and smelled nothing but sulfur. In a panic, I went and checked the secondary and had a slight sulfur smell but not as bad as the other smaller batch i set aside. Everything I've read about Rhino farts said it was normal when happening in the primary fermentation. Although this is not my first batch of cider and I never had the Rhino farts in primary before but everything I've read is also said that when you smell something bad and secondary it raises cause for concern.

I guess my question is is what should I do to try and get that smell out now that's and secondary there's nothing left really to ferment so if I leave it alone the smell's probably not going to go away with it or if I leave it alone is the smell just going to cancel itself out? I am not understanding how it's going to cancel itself out because nothing is fermenting.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Maylar]

Please post your recipe in detail.

 

[Parsaver]

6 gallons fresh pressed cider.
2 lbs brown sugar
2 lbs fresh strawberries.
S-04

Pectin Enzyme for the berries and juice.
Campden for the juice

Tablets added at -24 hours to pitch
Enzyme added at -12

Juice+sugar+berries+yeast
OG 1.07 temp 68
Day 7 SG 1.027. Temp 70
Day 15 SG 1.007. Temp 72
Day 19 SG 1.003. TEMP 68
RACKED from fermenter to carboy on top of 4lb frozen strawberry purree. Placed the carboy in water bath to drop temperature to 54, then 44
Day 21. Sulfur oder. Racked off the lees, then splashed racked x2.

The color is amazing, it taste very tart, everytime I took a gravity reading, it smelled....delicious. I was planning on letting it sit for another week but the oder through me a loop.

Plan after that was to sweeten with FAJC and pasteurized after bottling.

Thanks for looking at this.

 

[Maylar]

Just a theory, but -

With your 1.070 OG you'd be at about 9% ABV. I don't know what the alcohol tolerance of S-04 is or how much sugar your puree added, but there may be a possibility that the yeast is dying of alcohol poisoning. Some yeasts give off sulfur smells when they stress out.

 

[Yooper]

The "rhino farts" smell is a sign of stressed yeast.

The cold fermentation temperature after adding the strawberries stressed the yeast.

You can try giving the fermentation some nutrients, and letting be warmer but it may not help at this point.

 

[Parsaver]

The purpose of cooling it was to try and keep it from starting back up and fermenting everything that was in the puree. Is there another proffered way of doing this? There are a great many people who suggest cold crashing, why don't they experience this problem as well?

 

[Yooper]

The purpose of cooling it was to try and keep it from starting back up and fermenting everything that was in the puree. Is there another proffered way of doing this? There are a great many people who suggest cold crashing, why don't they experience this problem as well?

Yes, normally if you want to stop fermentation you stop the wine/mead/cider with stabilization steps before adding more fermentables.

Cold crashing is to clear the cider, not to halt fermentation. Stressing the yeast means off flavors, so it's not routinely done to halt fermentation. It's done once fermentation has stopped.

 

[laredo7mm]

I cold crash to halt fermentation and don't normally have any issues with sulfur. My last two batches (one with Notty and one with S04) started at 1.051 and 1.050. I fermented each at about 64° (cider temp, not ambient) down to 1.012ish and then cold crashed to stop fermentation. Usually I get sulfur just after peak fermentation but I don't add any nutrients and it is expected. The sulfur smell goes away after a couple more days of fermentation.

I have had a couple batches in the past (one still on tap) that had the rhino farts linger into kegging and drinking. One batch was with Notty and the other with WLP002. With both of those batches I was messing with the temperatures during fermentation. I started them at 62° ambient and then moved them to 50° ambient once fermentation was going well, and then moved them back to the low 60's since fermentation had almost stopped and they were stinky.

How long did it take to drop the temp and how long did you hold them at 54/44°? I think the low temp may have caused the sulfur issue. A slow drop down to 54° with a bunch of fermentables left and a while at a low temp is darn close to what I think caused my sulfur issue.

My typical cold crash cycle is to cold crash without racking first. I know it may not be the best way to go but I really don't like racking. I cold crash as fast as possible. Living in Michigan, we have plenty of cold so I will set the carboy outside to cold crash. The colder the better and I let the temp of the cider come down to 35°. Then I move it to the refrigerator at 37° and let it set for 4 or 5 days. Now I will rack to a clean carboy and put it back into the fridge for another 4 or 5 days until I rack again into another clean container where it sits until my current keg of cider goes dry. At this point, it can sit at room temp with no restarting of fermentation and is about crystal clear. Here is a link a pic I posted a bit ago: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7437578&postcount=250

If I were you, I would rack, cold crash for 4 or 5 days at as close to freezing as possible, rack again onto your berries and keep things cold for however long it needs, and then rack a final time.

 

[Parsaver]

Thank you for your responses. I live in southern California and the ambient outside temperature is about 85 lol. I placed the small bottle (8oz) in the refrigerator, the 5 gal carboy I placed in an ice bath. To be specific, I placed the carboy in a large plastic storage container and filled it with ice and then water. The temp of the cider in the carboy was close to 68 and the next day, the ice had melted and thr temp was 54. I then switched to a combination of blocks of ice and crushed ice which allowed me to get it to 44 and maintain it. The small bottle went straight to 34 and stayed there and when I smelled it, it was very bad. From the reading here I had done, stressed yeast seemed to be the culprit and I removed the carboy from the bath and racked it. The next day I stirred it for 5 minutes with a copper pipe. This seems to have removed most of the smell. I'm not sure if I can smell trace amounts or if it's in my head that I smell it. I asked the wife to smell and she said it smells fine but at the same time, whenever I talk to her about brewing she just gives me a thumbs up and says "Science!". So.... the carboy is back at 68 and I've seen a couple of bubbles inside the carboy but nothing to make the airlock bubble. I'll give it some time and monitor it for changer for the better or worse.

About the crashing to halt fermintation, I've read both here and other places that people have done before in cases where they didn't want a dry finish and they wanted something sweeter. In this case, I still wanted to be able to bottle carb and didn't want to kill that chance by using K to stabalize. I totally get that people sue different techniques to reach the same goals and not everyone agrees on those techniques

From everything I gathered, it seemed getting the cider cold stressed the yeast and thus gave off the H2S. However Laredo said he does it and it worked well lol. The small bottle that I got the coldest the fastest smelled the worst lol so.... I am just trying at this point to diagnos what I can change to make sure it doesn't happened again. I'm buying 6 more gallons of fresh pressed Monday lol.

 

[Yooper]

I cold crash to halt fermentation and don't normally have any issues with sulfur. My last two batches (one with Notty and one with S04) started at 1.051 and 1.050. I fermented each at about 64° (cider temp, not ambient) down to 1.012ish and then cold crashed to stop fermentation. Usually I get sulfur just after peak fermentation but I don't add any nutrients and it is expected. The sulfur smell goes away after a couple more days of fermentation.

I have had a couple batches in the past (one still on tap) that had the rhino farts linger into kegging and drinking. One batch was with Notty and the other with WLP002. With both of those batches I was messing with the temperatures during fermentation. I started them at 62° ambient and then moved them to 50° ambient once fermentation was going well, and then moved them back to the low 60's since fermentation had almost stopped and they were stinky.

How long did it take to drop the temp and how long did you hold them at 54/44°? I think the low temp may have caused the sulfur issue. A slow drop down to 54° with a bunch of fermentables left and a while at a low temp is darn close to what I think caused my sulfur issue.

My typical cold crash cycle is to cold crash without racking first. I know it may not be the best way to go but I really don't like racking. I cold crash as fast as possible. Living in Michigan, we have plenty of cold so I will set the carboy outside to cold crash. The colder the better and I let the temp of the cider come down to 35°. Then I move it to the refrigerator at 37° and let it set for 4 or 5 days. Now I will rack to a clean carboy and put it back into the fridge for another 4 or 5 days until I rack again into another clean container where it sits until my current keg of cider goes dry. At this point, it can sit at room temp with no restarting of fermentation and is about crystal clear. Here is a link a pic I posted a bit ago: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7437578&postcount=250

If I were you, I would rack, cold crash for 4 or 5 days at as close to freezing as possible, rack again onto your berries and keep things cold for however long it needs, and then rack a final time.

If you are cold crashing at 1.012, and not adding more fermentables that does seem to work since fermentation is winding down anyway. S04 pretty reliably stops by 1.004- 1.010. But adding 4 pounds of strawberries, and then immediately cold crashing would definitely stress the yeast. The yeast would try to ferment those added simple sugars.

 

[Parsaver]

So would it be better in the future to cold crash and then add fruit or rack on to fruit and then rack off and cold crash?

For the one in question, I warmed it back up and added 1/2 cup of sugar. The yeast started picking back up again and mist of the smell has gone. SG is back to 1.004 and there is still small signs of fermentation. The aroma left but hey, I would rather have no strawberry smell instead of an egg smell!! Color stayed though.

 

[Parsaver]

I thought I would post an update as to how things went. I added a bit more sugar and returned the temperature to around 70. stirred with a copper pipe and removed the smell. Unfortunately, I didn't do enough research on S-04 and there were a couple of times that the temperature went over 70 degrees which in retrospect is a no-no. The cider came out clear and sparkling. It tasted like a strawberry flavored candy apples, if the apples tasted like yeast, and the strawberries tasted like yeast, and the candy tasted like yeast. I did some checking here and it seems that 70 is way to high for S-04 and the flavors I'm tasting are ester.

So, I bought a 7ft freezer and an ITC-2000 and now I have 12 gallons bubbling away at a nice and cool 61 degrees.