vomit smell/taste

[that-dude-rick]

So I'm still really new at this and would like some insight.

I didn't have any sanitizing solution, so i used campden tablets to sanitize my gallon jug I'm fermenting in, and everything else. So i have a gallon of boa vista cider, dropped a Campden tab in, waited 24 hours, rehydrated red star wine yeast, stirred, dumped in the jug, dumped in a half cup brown sugar i had heated with water, and then the juice, added a lil yeast nutrient.*

This was friday night. Fast forward, it's tuesday afternoon, i took a gravity reading and it was 1.022. The cider alone was 1.06 before the sugar. That seems like a very fast fermentation. I have kept it between 66-70 degrees.*

It has a little bit of a vomit smell and taste too btw.

Does it seem like i did anything wrong? Is this ferment going too fast? And the smell and taste, is this any concern?

 

[that-dude-rick]

Also should it haave been in the refrigerator while the campden tablet was doin its thing? I did this the first time i made hard cider. This time i didn't

 

[ubnserved]

I just clicked on this because of the title. Vomit smell/taste.... first off if it smells like vomit I suggest not tasting it. If it was me my body at that point would add to the smell and taste with fresh vomit.
I have found that the vomit smell is usually caused by kids or the vomit smell /taste combo has almost always, in my case, been caused by me throwing up. There was the time, however ,when my youngest was about 4 and hollered for me from his bed. In the time it took me to get 30 feet or so from the living room to his he had managed to hit every wall 2 walls in the closet, both closet doors, the bedroom door, 75% of all the toys and finally all three beds that were in the bedroom shared with his 2 brothers. THE smell was so bad that before I turned on the light my stomach was trying to empty and you could absolutely taste the vomit in the air. I had to leave the apartment fortunately my wife has a strong stomach or we would have been calling one of those bio hazard cleaning companies. The smell was so bad that after I walked around calming the gut I was in the yard and a gust of wind from the house came wafting out a good 25 ft of open space and started the pleasantries all over.

 

[that-dude-rick]

Ok but why does the cider smell that way and is it anything to worry about?

 

[brewkinger]

Is it possible that you are smelling sulphur / rotten eggs?
That is VERY common smell when making cider.
There are sulphate compounds that are being produced during fermentation.
The smell can be very intense and nauseating at times.
Cider makers commonly refer to this as "rhino farts".
That is my vote.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Yooper]

I've noticed that some apple juices will get a "vomit" smell to them that does fade (thank goodness!) but I wouldn't call it common.

Since it's only at 1.022, I'd go ahead and get some yeast nutrient in there (dissolve it in a little water or some of the cider first) and stir it up to see if you can relieve some of the stress on the yeast from the co2 and lack of nutrients. That should help alot. You generally don't want to stir when fermentation is complete, to avoid oxidation, but at 1.022 you are fine to do that and it should be done.

 

[brewkinger]

I've noticed that some apple juices will get a "vomit" smell to them that does fade (thank goodness!) but I wouldn't call it common.

Now that the wiser minds have chimed in, I want to clarify that the smell of vomit is not common.

The smell of sulphur, rotten eggs, etc.. is common though.

 

[Jsmtg32]

If you know some who make wine for a living, have them smell it. It might be a normal smell that you are not use to, so your brain is associating it with the smell of vomit.

 

[that-dude-rick]

I've noticed that some apple juices will get a "vomit" smell to them that does fade (thank goodness!) but I wouldn't call it common.

Since it's only at 1.022, I'd go ahead and get some yeast nutrient in there (dissolve it in a little water or some of the cider first) and stir it up to see if you can relieve some of the stress on the yeast from the co2 and lack of nutrients. That should help alot. You generally don't want to stir when fermentation is complete, to avoid oxidation, but at 1.022 you are fine to do that and it should be done.

Thanks. I know the rhino fart smell, and the Barsotti's cider i have going right now with brown sugar and honey with s-04 yeast is smelling like rotten eggs a bit. At least it smells like apple still.

I checked gravity earlier on the Boa Vista cider? it was about 1.010. Geeze, that's a lot to go down in a day don't you think? I think i used too much yeast. I will add a bit of nutrient.

 

[bigmick91]

I've encountered a very acidic almost vomit smell in cider before. The only common denominator i found was using apple juice that was too sharp or adding acid. The most effective way i found of neautalising it personally is adding juice from the sweetest eating apples i could find as opposed to cider apples. Also had some luck from oak aging it, if you don't have a barrel, a few smoking chips in the jug work really well, i can recommend jack daniels smoking chips. You can get them from amazon for around £5 a bag. That is of course relying on the assumption you like aged cider. Is it scrumpy cider, clear cider? Some scrumpys have a very unusual smell, Black rat for example smells very savoury. The wife says it smells like sausage! If you want any advice or to bounce ideas on hard cider drop me a pm any time I've had pretty much every disaster you can have! And have been brewing and drinking it since well before i was legal.

 

[andrewmaixner]

Glad I searched for the "vomit" term instead of just the chemical name.

I just tested a cider which I am fermenting where I was having trouble placing the bad flavor. I was first thinking that it was too tart for the gravity measurement, then a week later on another SG measurement/taste I was thinking it was vinegery, but that wasn't quite it. My homebrew club recently started a series of "off flavor" technical tastings (buying the chemicals from a supplier to add to a neutral beer to learn to identify them), and I believe that the flavor is ethyl butyrate ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl_butyrate ) in the form of Butanoic Acid ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyric_acid ), which smells and tastes moderately like vomit.
I might see if sweetening masks it, but this might be the first homebrew ever that I trash

Not sure where the infection was introduced. I took a yeast cake in the carboy from a cider (from juice) which turned out quite well, and immediately after racking to a keg, I added more apple juice/nutrient/O2 to the carboy, sanitizing all juice container lids with StarSan before opening, and boiling the nutrient before addition.