Paint smell in Pumpkin Ale

[Dingo_1]

Howdy,

So back in October, I brewed a Smashing Pumpkin Ale from NB. Brew day, the beer smelled and tasted awesome. A few weeks later I checked on it again, still great smell and taste from when I checked the Hydrometer. But now, as I think about bottling, I have this weird paint smell. Is it even worth bottilng? Is it possible I let it sit too long? There aren't any other signs of infection in the carboy, so I'm as a loss. Taste it then decide?

Thanks,
Dingo

 

[mrgrimm101]

How does it taste? Never dump anything without tasting it. Did you use real pumpkin, or just the spices?

 

[Dingo_1]

I haven't tasted it yet. I will when I get home from work. I used spices and real pumpkin.

 

[danath34]

I'd like to add to the above. Even if you taste it and it is horrible, still don't dump it. It is still possible for the bad flavors to age out. I did a Scottish export and due to a brew day mishap, lost half of my yeast as I rehydrated. LHBS was closed, so I pitched it and RDWHAHB'ed and let it go. When it was done, it had the yeast character of a hefe, which is NOT pleasant in a Scottish export. Couldn't stand it. I gave it another month in the bottles at warm room temp, and it is great now!

As to the source of the flavor, I doubt it's because you left it too long in the fermenter. People leave theirs in primary for months on end, and report no autolysis flavors. It may be caused by too warm of a ferm temp maybe? Or maybe if you were conditioning on pumpkin+spices in the fermenter, maybe it extracted some unpleasant flavor over time? I dunno, just spitballing. But I vote bottle it and give it some time. You'll be pleasantly surprised.