Extreme stankiness in raspberry wine

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Pendragon524

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I threw together some raspberry wine three weeks ago, consisting of six pounds of raspberries, 3/4 a gallon of water, 2.5lbs of sugar, and Lalvin 71-B yeast. The OG was 1.090, and the FG was 0.990.

The problem is that it smells absolutely putrid. It started smelling bad almost immediately, and now three weeks later still smells gross. I had the same problem fermenting blackberries a while back.

Is this normal for raspberry fermentations, or is something else a foot?
 
Sounds like a fermentation problem or an infection. "Putrid" could mean several things- vomit-like? Fecal-like? etc. If you can better describe it, maybe we can help diagnose the issue.
 
and if it smells like rotten eggs then your yeast have produced hydrogen sulfide - often but not always - a sign of stressed yeast (insufficient nutrients). One method of removing the compound is to whip air into your wine. If that doesn't work racking through copper scouring wool: the copper binds with the sulfur and produces copper sulfide. Copper sulfide IS toxic in quantity but you will manufacture macroscopic amounts ...
 
It's not the rotten eggs smell of hydrogen sulfide, I've had that before and this is more intense. I'm not sure how to characterize it. It is the exact same smell as when I fermented blackberries, so I'd have to guess its just an innocuous product of the fermentation, but everywhere I look online about raspberry wine fails to mention the stench.
 
It's not the rotten eggs smell of hydrogen sulfide, I've had that before and this is more intense. I'm not sure how to characterize it. It is the exact same smell as when I fermented blackberries, so I'd have to guess its just an innocuous product of the fermentation, but everywhere I look online about raspberry wine fails to mention the stench.

Because wine shouldn't have a "stench". Something is wrong- whether it's unhealthy yeast, contamination, etc, we can't say without knowing more about the fermentation process or any details.
 
Because wine shouldn't have a "stench". Something is wrong- whether it's unhealthy yeast, contamination, etc, we can't say without knowing more about the fermentation process or any details.

There really isn't much to the 'process' to report. I crushed six pounds of raspberries, added enough water to reach a gallon, added the sugar, pectic enzyme, and yeast, and let it ferment in my closet - average temperature of 70 degrees. It took two weeks to ferment out completely. Vomit-like might be the closest descriptor.
 
UPDATE: I racked it a few days ago, and the smell has mostly dissipated. It now smells much like Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice, interestingly enough. It also doesn't taste like the smell it was emitting during fermentation, so that's nice!
 
I know sometimes smell from the gross lees I get from some of my fruit wines smell a bit like my feet if I have been wearing loafers all day without socks. My plum wine did this, and I was nervous till I racked them off. The smell and taste was awesome. That first racking also aerates the wine enough to kick out the funks.

I'm going to have to try this recipe, where did you get your razzies?
 
I know sometimes smell from the gross lees I get from some of my fruit wines smell a bit like my feet if I have been wearing loafers all day without socks. My plum wine did this, and I was nervous till I racked them off. The smell and taste was awesome. That first racking also aerates the wine enough to kick out the funks.

I'm going to have to try this recipe, where did you get your razzies?
I got my raspberries from Whole Foods! :) Let me know how yours turns out if you do it!
 
No expert but an aroma of vomit suggests the presence of butyric acid and that may be associated with bacteria on the fruit itself. In your description of your "process" you don't make any mention of adding K-meta to the fruit before you pitched the yeast. K-meta (could be Campden tabs) kills bacteria and wild yeast on the fruit. It's possible that your process enabled the bacteria to thrive until the acidity or alcohol produced by the yeast felled them... But you might want to consider adding sulfur dioxide (the active ingredient of K-meta) to fruit before you do anything else.
 
No expert but an aroma of vomit suggests the presence of butyric acid and that may be associated with bacteria on the fruit itself. In your description of your "process" you don't make any mention of adding K-meta to the fruit before you pitched the yeast. K-meta (could be Campden tabs) kills bacteria and wild yeast on the fruit. It's possible that your process enabled the bacteria to thrive until the acidity or alcohol produced by the yeast felled them... But you might want to consider adding sulfur dioxide (the active ingredient of K-meta) to fruit before you do anything else.

That's a fair criticism of my process, and something that I will change moving forward!
 
Pendragon, If you observe the practices of good grape wine makers, unless they really know what they are doing and they are making "natural wine" using the indigenous yeasts on their grapes or crushers, it looks like 99% of them will douse their grapes with sulfites immediately after crushing. They may allow the crushed grapes to macerate for a few days before they pitch their yeast to extract the color and flavors and tannins that are water soluble but they work to remove the volunteer bacteria and yeasts. True, some of those wine makers may permit some indigenous bacteria and yeast to snack on the sugars for a day or so to increase the complexity of flavors but those wine makers almost invariably pitch a very large and active colony of yeast that quickly dominate the environment wiping out any competing yeasts and bacteria
 
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