Sour smell, lots of trub 16 days in

[StraightCs]

I'm making a 1 gallon APA batch from a recipe shared among friends. It calls for A LOT of hops (I don't have the recipe with me). After the boil, I used a strainer to get out much of the solids, most of which were hops, I presume.

The fermentation process started fine for the first four days, and then seemed to stall and I had a considerable amount of trub (more than half the carboy) for several days, at which time I decided to kick-start the fermentation process and put it in a room that was about 82 degrees (from 76) and added a teaspoon table sugar dissolved in four ounces of boiled and then cooled water, and then cooled it to room temperature (75-76 again), to help move along the fermentation process. After 10 days, the trub is now about 1/4 of the carboy (still a lot), but I pulled off the airlock for a moment and took a whiff...it smells nothing like malt, but like grapefruit and Purell hand sanitizer. It's a heck of a lot more aromatic than a gose, that's for sure.

Do I dump this or let this sit awhile? After such a long time, can I expect the trub to compress more?

 

[owmatooth]

the trub will settle, and then you can cold crash at 32 degrees once you're satisfied its done. I think the issue might be the fermentation temperature. 76 is tough on most yeasts and you'll get a tinny (sanitizer) taste and a sour smell. the smell will fade, but the taste takes a long time to mellow out. (months if ever).
I'd look a the swamp cooler idea if you don't have a spare fridge to set at 64-68 degrees. I had the same issue for my first 4-5 brews until I finally got the fermentation under 70 degrees. Only thing i let climb to 74-76 is the french saison yeast, which loses a lot of its personality under 70 degrees.

 

[ncbrewer]

The grapefruit smell might be from the hops - some have a grapefruit aroma. The hand sanitizer smell might be from high fermentation temps and maybe oxidation This would be solvent smell - maybe what you're describing. 76 is pretty high for most yeast. Or if more like medicinal, it could be from chlorine. I have no idea why so much trub, but I'd be inclined to leave it another week and see if it settles.

 

[StraightCs]

We have highly chlorinated water in my town (not the best local water supply) and I'd say, yes, medicinal (my wife says it smells like pine cleaner), but it's nothing like the grapefruit smell. I like very hoppy, citrus-y ales, but this smells REAL strong of grapefruit. These are the hops I used (I hope it wasn't too much): 0.1 oz Cascade at 60 minutes into boil, 0.2 Cascade at 30 minutes into boil and 0.25 Citra at the end of the boil. Too much?

Meanwhile, I'm putting the carboy in the basement, where it's cooler and then will cold crash when the trub is notably lower and I'm ready to rack into bottles.

 

[ncbrewer]

You can neutralize the chlorine by treating your water with campden tablets at the rate of one tablet to 20 gallons. I generally double this amount to be safe, and it doesn't seem to have any negative side effects. Treating one gallon (or a little more allowing for boil-off) would be difficult if trying to split up a tablet, but you could dissolve a tablet in water and dip out the amount you need. Do this quickly since the campden effect dissipates quickly.