AWFUL SMELL 5 days after pitching.

I brewed a pale ale and pitched the yeast 5 days ago. Really, throughout all of the 5 days it has smelled bad. It does NOT smell like beer. The krausen foam has already formed at the top and it has started to sink. I just want to know if it's supposed to smell this bad throughout fermentation and then clear up and start smelling better.

2lbs of LME alexander's.
1 lb of DME amber pale
.8oz of nugget hops for 60 mins
.7oz of cascade 15 mins.

Safale US-56 yeast.. 11.5 grams (1 packet)

I rehydrated the yeast at water that was a bit more than warm.. felt nice on fingers and then pitched that into just warm wort. I did aerate it pretty well by shaking and stiring for like 20 seconds pretty heavily. it's been fermenting at 65 degrees F.

Is this pale ale supposed to smell like this? I'm pretty sure it is fermenting because the krausen formed and everything. PLEASE HELP AND ENLIGHTEN ME.

PS:When should it start to clear up and become more yellow... right now it is brown.

 

Welcome.. Need to be more detailed.. What does it smell like?
How warm was the wort when you added the yeast?

 

Did you boil the water you added the yeast to for rehydration? If not, what was its source (city/bottle/well)?

Could you take pictures of the krausen?

As far as the color goes, it always looks a little darker in the carboy/bucket than it does in a glass. It's just a volume thing. It's like the deeper you go in the ocean the less light makes it through.

 

Have you tried it yet? Remember that nothing harmful can grow in beer, only things that make it taste bad. You really cannot say much about "infections" until you have tasted it.

 

I did not boil the water for rehydration and it was tap water.

It smelled weird. Just didnt smell like beer and it was also kind of sweet smelling but unpleasant. the wort was warm to the touch when i pitched the yeast. same as when i rehydrated.

How is it supposed to smell?

 

Warm to the touch to me reads as too warm.
The wort should be cool before pitching, somewhere in the 60's. Which should feel cool to the touch.

Get a thermometer.

 

Beer smells all sorts of things, including awful, at times during primary fermentation. I've had plenty of these instances. Check gravity after a week, then repeat for 3 consecutive days. If stable, give it a few more days (or longer) and cold-crash a few days, then rack to secondary/bottling bucket. It will be fine.

 

You may just be smelling the combination of hops and CO2 coming out of the airlock. If you're not familiar with the fermenting hops smell and you're not a full blown hop head you may find the smell unpleasant. Yeast produce all kinds of smells during fermentation especially at higher temps. If you are fermenting in a 65 degree room your beer is most likely at least 73 to 75 degrees in the carboy. That is too warm and you will get off flavors due to extra ester and possible fusel alcohol production. If the beer starts to smell like paint thinner or whiskey you have a fusel problem. Likewise, if your beer tastes strongly like alcohol and burns your sinuses when you taste it then you have a fusel problem. If you plan to continue in this hobby the best advice I can give you is to control your fermentation temps with either a swamp cooler setup or full blown temp controlled fermentation chamber.

At this point I would say the smell you are experiencing is probably normal and I wouldn't worry about it until you taste it and find there is something to worry about.

 

+1

 

Agreed, anyone that has brewed a bavarian heffe knows this first hand. This style of yeast produces sulfur as a biproduct so you get a gassy rotten egg smell. I was worried that this would affect the beer but it tasted just fine. So let it run its course, and you might be pleasantly surprised in the end.