Is this smell anything to worry about?

[mrkartoom]

Doing my 1st batch (a weizen) and it's been in the primary 1 week now. Just took a reading and it looks to be at about 1.014 and still fairly active fermentation visible with the lid off. Noticed some small darker areas in the very thin surface foam and stuck my nose way down in there to get a good whiff. When I did I got a real sinus irritating dose of something. Not sure how to explain it, but it was similar to ammonia in the way it irritated my sinuses and took my breath for a second. Didn't notice this the other day when smelling it. It dissipated a bit with the lid off as I expected and the brew still has a good smell to it. Just not sure if this ammonia-like thing is normal or a sign of something being off?

Took a taste sample and a little bitterness (from my squeezing the grain bag maybe?), but other than that not too bad.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

You just took your first blast of CO2 to the face. It's a homebrew rite of passage.

 

[mrkartoom]

You just took your first blast of CO2 to the face. It's a homebrew rite of passage.

Excellent.

Thanks!

 

[hoppymonkey]

+1 on that. I did it on my first beer as well.

 

[boo boo]

Welcome to the semi-secret club of airlock sniffers. Before long you'll be sneaking downstairs for a hit from the airlock to tide you over a few hours, lol.

 

[JimTheHick]

My Name is Jim and I'm a yeastaholic.

I've got a tripel going with 3522 and it smells of bananas out the airlock. Beautiful fruity banana esters. YUM.

Edit: and it exploded, so I got that smell just walking down the basement steps!

 

[Blone]

Welcome to the semi-secret club of airlock sniffers. Before long you'll be sneaking downstairs for a hit from the airlock to tide you over a few hours, lol.

Didn't know there was a club for this! My friends gf is a nurse, I had her get me an oxygen mask with the tubing. The idea was to hook the tubing from the mask directly to the airlock tube so I can take whiffs. I guess I have a serious problem.

It kinda worked, but the tubing was too small, not enough flow to get a good hit!