Strong nail polish remover scent

[commonlaw]

A few days into fermentation of 10 gallons of my special bitter using WLP-002 my chest freezer was full of an overpowering smell of nail polish remover. It hasn't gone away almost a week later. Anyone know what is up with this? Maybe just a byproduct of this particular yeast? Usually I make my bitters with Burton (WLP-023).

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Acetone is the main ingredient in nail polish remover, I don't know what would be causing that odor in your beer.

I'm sure someone will chime in, but scent is relative, what smells like nail polish remover to one person may smell competely different to another.

Check this out: Strong nail polish remover scent

Could it be just the co2 in your chest freezer burning your nostrils when taking a whiff?

 

[demonrichie]

let it age out before doing anything drastic. ive heard of and even smelled some weird things during fermentation(most often the rhino farts). also i have never worked with wlp-002 so i cant tell you what it would smell like. just give it time and rdwhahb

 

[commonlaw]

yeah i have had a couple people identify it as nail polish remover. just sort of weird. this was a low gravity beer and i am running low (hate having nothing on the hand pump!) so i was going to turn it around fairly quick. well, i'll take a gravity reading this weekend (2 weeks) and see how it is looking and tasting. who knows, maybe the beer doesn't have the flavor. just thought such a strong, obvious odor was a bit odd.

interesting discussion in that link: i did do a brett ferment recently, but not in the freezer, and didn't use the same carboy and bucket for this one. also temp should not be too high--freezer was between 63 and 66 the whole time. maybe not enough aeration. I pitched a decent starter, about 1.5L per carboy.