Unhappy yeast smell like crap

[Noleafclover]

So...

I've made this recipe before... It's an american wheat with a flaked maize twist. However, this last time, I had shut off all outside garden hose connections for the winter. I had also replaced the kitchen sink faucet in the same week.

So, when I brewed this beer I had no connections available to my wort chiller. None. I thought, "Fortunately it just snowed so I'll cart my boil kettle around to snow piles."

That doesn't work well. I'd have just been better off to rack to primary and let it sit overnight.

But me I'm stuck, gotta get it chilled. So I moved it around to different snow piles until 2:30 am. At 2:30 am I'm at 98 degrees still.

So I'm tired, under a few homebrews, and say "Screw it, I'm just gonna pitch and see what happens."

So I aerate, pitch my started, cap it, and then go to bed about 3:15 am.

Late night.

In any case, I just got to taste the fruits of that bad batch.... The aroma was sulfur... it smelled like some stanky fart. I was not surprised because I pitched the yeast way warm.

But the tasted was great. It tasted totally different than the aroma. I thought that was weird honestly... but whatever, it tastes good. I'll give it a coupla weeks and see what happens.

In any case had to share. Was interesting pitching hot.

- Noleaf

 

[Rick500]

I had some weird sulfur smells coming off the fermenter the one time I used Wyeast 1010.

Beer tastes and smells fine though.

Did you use the same yeast?

 

[Gremlyn]

What yeast and how long has it been going? Yeast can put out sulfur compounds, but they usually disappear after a few days. Give it some aging time and it'll all be good.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Sometimes it's a case of, if the smell's LEAVING the beer through the airlock, it eventually goes away and is no longer IN the beer.

 

[Noleafclover]

Yah It was Wyeast 1010. It doesn't smell nearly as strong as it did originially and it never tasted of sulfur. Interesting stuff that...

 

[david_42]

I'm a bit confused here. How old is the batch?

 

[Noleafclover]

I brewed this batch on Oct 3rd.
I racked to a keg on the 21st.
I'm not terribly patient so I first tasted it on Oct 24th. On the 24th the sulfur odor was strong. Yesterday it was much less so after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days.

I was blaming the sulfur smell on the high pitching temp..

 

[Gremlyn]

Try purging the keg a few times with fresh CO2, it's likey all the sulfur is just sitting there waiting to dissipate.

 

[Noleafclover]

Try purging the keg a few times with fresh CO2, it's likey all the sulfur is just sitting there waiting to dissipate.

Good idea... I will try this when I get home.

 

[SupraSPL]

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch of Northern Brewer's Honey Wheat with Wyeast 1010. The smack pack was inflated for 48 hours before pitching. Jug was in a closet with temps 65-68 degrees. Fermentation was full blast 18 hours after pitching. By 30 hours it started producing Sulphur smell. It was strong enough to smell up the whole bedroom and was very concentrated in the closet. I moved it into another room that is about 65 degrees. 48 hours since pitching and there is still a little sulphur smell but it has decreased a LOT.

I used R/O water, 6 lbs northern brewer wheat LME, 1 pound honey. I expect the beer will still come out fine, but I did have a date that evening and I had to apologize for the smell and move the brew. So I probably won't be using this recipe in the future.

 

[Gremlyn]

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch of Northern Brewer's Honey Wheat with Wyeast 1010. The smack pack was inflated for 48 hours before pitching. Jug was in a closet with temps 65-68 degrees. Fermentation was full blast 18 hours after pitching. By 30 hours it started producing Sulphur smell. It was strong enough to smell up the whole bedroom and was very concentrated in the closet. I moved it into another room that is about 65 degrees. 48 hours since pitching and there is still a little sulphur smell but it has decreased a LOT.

I used R/O water, 6 lbs northern brewer wheat LME, 1 pound honey. I expect the beer will still come out fine, but I did have a date that evening and I had to apologize for the smell and move the brew. So I probably won't be using this recipe in the future.

Sulfur isn't the recipe as much as the yeast processing the recipe.