Rotten spent grains...yuck!

[Turfmanbrad]

So I spent the day yesterday brewing a hefe and had a few friends over. While brewing...and after...I was drinking homebrews, including a 14%er, and scotch like it was water. Cleanup was lackluster and recovery today was slow. This evening I was cleaning up and opened my mash tun with the grains still inside and almost lost my lunch and dinner. That was the most disgusting smell ever. Now I know to always clean my tun the day of the brew. I'm sure there are some out there that have done this too, but hopefully this can prevent at least one fellow brewer from suffering the same olfactory event.

 

[passedpawn]

Sour mash. You were half way to making a berliner weisse.

 

[WoolyBooger]

I was just trying to explain that rancid smell to my wife this evening. Just god awful! I about charfed trying to dump it into the compost.

 

[Pilgarlic]

I've heard it described as a dead animal covered in vomit. I confess I did it early on. Once. Just once.

 

[android]

happened to me once too, i had to air out my mash tun for a week.

 

[Ryush806]

I did this once, too. I knew it would be bad....I just didn't know how bad! I cleaned it up but that smell seemed to linger on and on and on!

 

[Frodo]

Only once for me as well. Rotting potatoes are pretty fine smelling too.

 

[kellzey]

Yep. I did cleanup and put my spent grains in a 5-gallon bucket and moved outside. Forgot about it. The sun hit it for most of the day. I decided to take it to the lake to "feed the fish" and dump it.

The smell reminded me of my college days when vomiting after a night of tequila and Taco Bell... This is the same nasty smell that started a chain reaction of vomiting. One guy started. Others smelled it, then they vomited... and on and on... not a pretty sight!

I don't think any fish ate the grains. LOL

 

[phoenixs4r]

Everyone does it once. After that you know better!

 

[tally350z]

I have yet to have this happen. Hopefully I don't ever let it happen..
I heard it smells like a used diaper full of indian food...

 

[cl330b]

I have yet to have this happen. Hopefully I don't ever let it happen..
I heard it smells like a used diaper full of indian food...

It smells like bigfoots dick...

 

[ndsgr]

I describe it as death.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I have crows that sit on the roof of the house across the street and wait to peck at whatever stinky trash I put out on trash day. Learned early on to put the spent grains in the HEAVY plastic bag ( contractor's cleanup bag) with a 22 GA solid copper wire as a twist tie. If they can't smell it they leave it alone. They haven't spread spent grains around my front yard yet, but other trash in the thin white kitchen liner.....

 

[aubiecat]

It smells bad enough getting a whiff of it, while I am working in the garden, from my mulch pile.
I can't imagine what it's like being in a closed container for a while.

 

[biochemedic]

I love all the very colorful descriptions! I once was lazy enough that I had to fill my entire mashtun with very, very hot oxyclean, and soak it overnight in order to get the odor out of it. After that, I still did a vinegar soak, and then bleached the interior before rinsing it out copiously

 

[kh54s10]

Maybe even worse than spent grains.... Spent hops!

I use 1 gallon paint strainer bags and wanted to save them. I did a late night finish on a brew day, left the hop bags in a bucket and forgot about them the next day. The day after that I could not get to them until evening. YUKK! They smelled really bad and were really slimy!

 

[wailingguitar]

I used to brew at a pub where I couldn't pull my mash on brew days because I couldn't drag the cans through the dining room during open hours... (no accessible back door to take the cans out, stupid) To be honest, it was my idea to do it this way... previous brewers had pulled mash during the day, rolling the cans through the dining room on a handtruck and the smell from the spent-grain cans and the fact that they were pretty much always covered with bird $#!+ made some customers VERY upset while they were trying to enjoy a burger and a beer... don't blame them a bit...

SO, to avoid grossing out the customers, I had to be grossed out myself. Let it sit over night and pull it at like 7am when I came in to work. Shoveling 15 bbls worth of reeking mash was MOST unpleasant, I can assure you... especially since (due to another STUPID design at this place) the grain had to be shoveled onto the floor first, and then into a can... In the words of Dr. Suess; STINK, STANK, STUNK

I discovered that a cold water sparge (draining to the floor drain of course) after I had completed my runoff helped the situation. Rapidly dropping the temp of the mash slowed the souring process dramatically. It was still unpleasant, but nowhere near as bad as it had been!

I worked at three breweries owned by this same company and all three of them had at least one STUUUUPID design flaw that made it really hard on the brewer. Morons LOL

 

[ao125]

I have yet to have this happen. Hopefully I don't ever let it happen..
I heard it smells like a used diaper full of indian food...

Last year, I was brewing out on my balcony mid-summer by myself, and my SWMBO was supposed to hold the trash bag while I dumped the mash tun in... Well, she didn't want to help and I ended up forgetting to empty out the mash tun for like 2 weeks of 90+ degree weather.

The mash tun smelled almost exactly like the description of Sex Panther from Anchorman.

I would have just thrown the whole igloo out if they weren't so expensive.

 

[whitehause]

It's amazing how quick this happens, and how hot the grains remain. I do BIAB and sat the bag in one of my pots and put the lid on while I finished. I forgot till the next day and when I took the lid off.....holy crap.
A member on here had a great description......"I was assaulted by a smell I could only describe as puree of smashed a$$holes and rotting unicorn souls"

 

[PerpetualBuzz]

I made the grave error of not covering the spent grains when I dumped them onto the compost pile...once. You could smell it all over the backyard. That stuff is rank.

 

[PhelanKA7]

The stuff is so pervasive that i've had issues with odor coming from a mash tun that I had emptied out immediately after brewing and then put the lid on. I learned to let it air out for a couple days before i stow it with the lid on.

Personally I'd describe the smell as being similar to unwashed and well used hockey/football gear crossed with a rotting animal carcass that has sat in the sun for a couple days.

 

[Turfmanbrad]

It's a formidable scent...it stings the nostrils....in a good way. It smells like a turd covered in burnt hair. -sex panther description by Anchorman Ron Burgundy-

 

[Turfmanbrad]

Would you believe I did it again? This time, it sat in my kitchen overnight with no lid. I thought it'd be ok in the morning especially with no lid. Fail. The kitchen has the gym locker musty wrestling practice clothes smell again. Not as bad as last time but definitely not a smart move.

 

[emjay]

I've left my cooler tun with some spent grain for over a month, once. And several weeks a few times. Just don't open that **** inside!

 

[Gduck]

It's been a long time since I let it sit in the mash tun too long. However the place where I dump my spent grains has a nice pervasive rancid odor to it. Fortunately it's at the back of the property so I generally only get a whiff of it when I'm mowing. Though the other day out of laziness I dumped it in the ditch by the road. With this heat we've been having lately you should see the people walking past it. Holding their noses and looking around trying to find the animal carcass!

 

[emjay]

Maybe even worse than spent grains.... Spent hops!

Hell no. There is absolutely no comparison, I assure you.

 

[jeepinjeepin]

I've left my cooler tun with some spent grain for over a month, once. And several weeks a few times. Just don't open that **** inside!

Finally, someone with some real experience.

I dumped the mash tun to a bucket and let it sit uncovered for a week or so. Pretty nasty.

 

[osagedr]

I dump the spent grains on my garden. They get a good rot going on. SWMBO complains about the smell--but you should see my potatoes!

 

[Whippy]

I am terrible for leaving my grains in the 5gal Homer bucket after I brew. The day after, I always get a nice olfactory reminder to clean up. lol

Sure, it stinks, but I think dead and rotten meat smell worse.

 

[thepartsmancometh]

I toss it in my composted, but I was lazy and didn't mix it in last time. Eeeeeww.

I have to walk by it to get in the garage too. Blech

 

[msa8967]

So I spent the day yesterday brewing a hefe and had a few friends over. While brewing...and after...I was drinking homebrews, including a 14%er, and scotch like it was water. Cleanup was lackluster and recovery today was slow. This evening I was cleaning up and opened my mash tun with the grains still inside and almost lost my lunch and dinner. That was the most disgusting smell ever. Now I know to always clean my tun the day of the brew. I'm sure there are some out there that have done this too, but hopefully this can prevent at least one fellow brewer from suffering the same olfactory event.

If the smell still lingers on buy a couple of boxes of baking soda and put these into your mashtun cooler and leave it sealed for a few days. Fixed the problem I had with this.

 

[biochemedic]

If the smell still lingers on buy a couple of boxes of baking soda and put these into your mashtun cooler and leave it sealed for a few days. Fixed the problem I had with this.

I was wondering if this might be helpful for this horrible, terribly pervasive odor that is incredibly difficult to remove from a cooler based mashtun (I indeed do still have some residual despite the multiple treatment described in my prior post )...I will be buying several boxes next time at the market! Did you open the boxes and pour them out in the tun?

 

[CidCitrus]

I'm going to take this as a good warning. I usually dump my grain way out back while I'm waiting for the wort to boil then rinse out my cooler tun with water from the hose immediately.

 

[msa8967]

I was wondering if this might be helpful for this horrible, terribly pervasive odor that is incredibly difficult to remove from a cooler based mashtun (I indeed do still have some residual despite the multiple treatment described in my prior post )...I will be buying several boxes next time at the market! Did you open the boxes and pour them out in the tun?

The first time I just took the tops off of the boxes and placed these in the mashtun but I later found it more effective to pour out the soda into the cooler, close the lid and shake the cooler around to help evenly distribute the soda powder. I repeated this 3 days later and everything was fine.

 

[ktblunden]

My first two AG batches I let the grains sit over night in the mashtun. I will never do that again. Now I dump the spent grains as soon as I get the brew pot on the burner.