Smell coming from fermentation chamber

[seafordbrewingcompany]

I've set up a chest freezer with an Inkbird as my fermentation chamber. I brewed a batch of beer on Friday and placed the carboy in the freezer with a blowoff hose going into a jar of sanitizer.
When I opened the freezer lid on Saturday morning I noticed fermentation had just started. When I checked it again on Saturday night, i almost passed out from the smell that hit me when I opened the freezer lid. I can't make out the smell because it's almost like a gas smell. It's faint but it's very powerful.
Is this common? Is that some type of gas being emitted from fermentation? Has anyone experienced this??
There's nothing in the freezer except the carboy of fermenting beer and a jug of sanitizer.
Can anyone explain??

 

[NothingRhymesWithCurtiss]

It's likely CO2 that you're smelling. Yeast eat sugar. Burp out CO2. And poop out alcohol.

I ferment with a swamp cooler in our 8' x 8' laundry room, and a few high-gravity batches have made it hard to breathe in the room for the first couple days of fermentation.

My advice: open the freezer and let it air out for a few before sticking your head in.

 

[seafordbrewingcompany]

I thought that's what it was.
I stuck my head in there to see if my fermometer temp matched my inkbird temp and the smell of gas hit me in the face so hard that I almost passed out and fell face first into the freezer!

 

[bucketnative]

CO2 will definitely burn the nostrils, as it will form carbonic acid upon contact with moist mucous membranes (aliteration!).

If it smelled a bit more sulfurous, then it was most likely due to stressed yeast... take that with a grain of salt. Some yeasts (especially wit and hefe strains) will produce sulfur odor normally.

 

[ChemErik]

If you had that strong of a reaction, I would think you have some volatile sulfur compounds made by the yeast. If it's an issue depends on the recipe and yeast used. As bucket native said, some yeasts produce these more than others. Even if it's not something you want, the yeast will usually clean these flavor a up on their own given time.