My closet smells like brimstone--Belgian strong sulfur madness!

[slothorentropy]

Brewed the Number 8 AG kit from NB yesterday; pitched a 2l Wyeast 1762 starter at about 7.30. Came back from the bar at midnight to vigorous fermentation. Have the fermenter sitting in the swamp cooler to hold her steady at about 70F. Just popped my head into the closet to check the water temp in the cooler and holy HELL is that scent noxious. I know there are a *ton* of threads with people freaking out about their sulfurous fermentations, so I guess I'll add mine to the pile. Yesterday's brewday was seriously smooth; no screw-ups, no chance for infection anywhere I can think of. I read in a couple of threads here the people suggest maybe picking up the temp to help the yeast clean up the odor... Is that advisable? Right now it's smack in the middle of the suggested temperature range.

 

[Calder]

It's doing fine. The smell is a product of fermentation and will dissipate in a couple of days. Don't worry, it will not be in the product.

 

[slothorentropy]

Word, yeah, I've read about this before, but this is my first experience with it in ~15 batches. I've done a few Belgians before and not smelled it. Although I did have a hefe end up with a slight sulfur aroma a couple of months ago and made the dire mistake of not letting it sit in secondary long enough and bottled before the scent completely dissipated. That beer had big problems otherwise (DMS, for one thing), but after a month in the bottle you still get a pretty big whiff of sulfur in the glass. I gather this is something that, once it's bottled, will never dissipate.

 

[slothorentropy]

Man I feel like a complete gimp for posting this thread now. Checked in on the closet today; the sulfurous stank is beginning to turn into the kind of nice fruity, estery aroma that I'd expect.