What's the worst homebrewing SMELL?!!!

[Zepth]

I neglected my spent grain for about 3 days in a bucket. Apartment living means I'm all indoor all the time. That was not the most pleasant cleanup ever, but could have been much worse.

My first wort boil was a nice, sweet malty goodness filling my home. Got a bit of a surprise with exactly how fragrant some hop varieties can be. Almost couldn't take it that first day. Now I don't mind it and hops are quickly gaining love.

Worst smell ever: coworker Troy. Too damn fat and lazy to leave his truck for any reason, has a 1 gal milk jug and a 5 gal bucket to make up a makeshift mens room. Then drives this damn thing with it still full. Also physically incapable of bending the required ways for proper hygiene. Some professional cleaners did 2 passes on the truck, a whole bottle of febreeze and 3 trees still didn't kill the smell. I suggest flamethrower cleaning next time. I'll take the dead body next time please. Side note: the cleaners told the boss to never bring that truck to them again.

 

[akillys]

I feel the same way!

Lol, after reading this thread I figure half of homebrewers are cops and the other half are serial killers!

Why so much death? Can't we all just get along?

Side note: I've never trusted chihuahuas...I swear those little bug-eyed rats are half cat and pure evil. I don't trust dogs I can throw.

Agreed! I wonder where I fall. I'm not a cop so......

I work for the Coast Guard. I am betting these guys are Paramedics or EMT's, Police, or Fire Fighters.

The crap you run across will gross you out pretty regularly.

I can respect that, I couldn't do it that's for sure. I understand you have to joke about that stuff sometimes though to keep you sane.

 

[BrewerinBR]

I was a Coastie .... 1976 to 1983 small boat coxwain great lakes

nothing smells as bad as a 14 day old floater ... hit one (by accident) with a 30 footer.... took us weeks to get the smell and pieces and parts off that boat.

 

[freisste]

Akillys, you somehow made it look like I said what knyland said. Namely that I am in the coast guard. Which I'm not. Just don't want to give anyone the wrong idea.

 

[jrgtr42]

Worst smells in homebrewing that I;ve run across are cider fermenting, and homebrew farts. Oddly they aren't that far off in aroma...
My spent grain gets tossed as soon as it's cool enough to handle either into the composter or frozen to use in bread dough.
I'm pretty careful about sanitization and cleanliness in brewing (though not so much in other parts of life...)
Worst smell outside of homebrew was probably cleaning that outhouse in the dead of summer... not as much the outhouse as the pile of.... stuff that the contents (of a similar nature) went onto... almost makes me retch thinking about it.

 

[akillys]

Akillys, you somehow made it look like I said what knyland said. Namely that I am in the coast guard. Which I'm not. Just don't want to give anyone the wrong idea.

It's all good my bad. If you look at the top of the quote you can see that it was Originally Posted by knyland. I wouldn't expect someone from Ann Arbor to be able to notice that I understand you guys have some problems reading up there in Ann Arbor.

Sorry, I was just kidding I'm sure you are very intelligent. I just had to have some fun I'm an OSU grad lol. All jokes aside I have a lot of respect for that team up north. I just don't like to see them win when they play us.

 

[JonM]

I just had to have some fun I'm an OSU grad lol. All jokes aside I have a lot of respect for that team up north. I just don't like to see them win when they play us.

As a Wisconsin alum (check the avatar) I hate those guys too.

 

[schoch79]

I love this thread. I haven't had the pleasure of bad smells from brewing yet. I am a prison guard however and sometimes an inmate will smear feces/urine on his cell walls or himself in preparation for a forced cell removal. That's always a pleasant smell. And to the comment of sometimes having to joke/laugh at this stuff....you are right...there are things that people outside of "the business" just wouldn't understand the inside "jokes" sometimes.

 

[Zepth]

I love this thread. I haven't had the pleasure of bad smells from brewing yet. I am a prison guard however and sometimes an inmate will smear feces/urine on his cell walls or himself in preparation for a forced cell removal. That's always a pleasant smell. And to the comment of sometimes having to joke/laugh at this stuff....you are right...there are things that people outside of "the business" just wouldn't understand the inside "jokes" sometimes.

Postpone the "forced cell removal" for a few days.

 

[sappnasty]

Holy $*!t what do you fellas do for a living? If I had to deal with that crap I wouldn't even bottle my finished homebrew. I'd pop off the bung, stick in the siphon, and drink till the carboy was gone.

akillys - LMFAO

Everyone else thats wondering, I am a patrol deputy.

-Sapp

 

[akillys]

As a Wisconsin alum (check the avatar) I hate those guys too.

To me, you guys are no better than them . Them badgers have spoiled plenty for us too. Basically the hate comes from the fact that you guys and both teams up north are the only ones that pose a threat. I'm sure we can still be friends... just not during football season.

Worst smelling things that I have smelt, fans of that team up north and badger fans. Sorry I couldn't resist lol.

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[PRE66_6TART]

I once left my spent grains in the trash can for a week. The enzymes or something made it smell exactly like vomit, only ten times stronger. Then when I finally took the trash outside the bag sprung a leak and left a trail of concentrated essence of vomit down the front hallway of our apartment building. We tried cleaning it up and dousing everything with fabreeze but it wouldn't go away. The neighbors must have thought an army of hobos came in and puked in hall and left.

 

[kh54s10]

I left used hop debris in a bucket for a mid summer week! PHEW!!!!

 

[akillys]

akillys - LMFAO

Everyone else thats wondering, I am a patrol deputy.

-Sapp

Much respect you and I are in a similar profession. I'm a 5th & 6th grade teacher at an intercity school lol

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[MindenMan]

Cider fermentation, and even that isn't too offensive to my nostrils.

But my work involves visiting a lot of sewer treatment plants.

I used to be a turd herder (waste water sewer treatment plant operator)
When I came in hung over, my boss would make me empty the grit bin. I puked every time.
So it is beer related.

 

[akillys]

I once left my spent grains in the trash can for a week. The enzymes or something made it smell exactly like vomit, only ten times stronger. Then when I finally took the trash outside the bag sprung a leak and left a trail of concentrated essence of vomit down the front hallway of our apartment building. We tried cleaning it up and dousing everything with fabreeze but it wouldn't go away. The neighbors must have thought an army of hobos came in and puked in hall and left.

The army of hobos thing killed me. I wonder if they would look like zombies too?

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[Corey_SS]

A lot of yeasty homebrew gives me rotten gas. Does that count?

 

[akillys]

Sure does. The first time I smelled 1056 smack pack on thought the yeast had gone bad or something

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[SmokeyMcBong]

I haven't ran across any bad brewing related smells yet but I thought I'd add my worst ever smell to help sidetrack the OP's thread lol

A few years ago the venue that I was working at did some renovations in one of the kitchens. That particular kitchen was closed for 3 months during the summer. Being that it was closed there was no need for any of us kitchen staff to go there.

One of the first things that the contractors did was to unplug the stand-up double door freezer that was in the back room. It was full of steak, shrimps and chicken. When we came to re-open the kitchen after renovations, we stumbled onto a dead rotting chunk of ex-animal matter that was just wriggling with maggots. I puked four times that day and offered to puke countless more times!!!

We ended up throwing out the freezer and most of the things in the dry storage room.

 

[jimmarshall]

This is going to sound weird, but I cannot stand the smell when steeping grains/the smell of malt extract before hops are added.


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[knyland]

Alright since everyone is complaining about week old spent grains. I am about to make the jump to all grain in the next few weeks. How well do the spent grains compost? I have heard of using them for rabbit/chicken feed but my wife is a gardener so why not help her out.

 

[VestanPance]

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[seckert]

I would bet they compost pretty well, however you are going to have to deal with the smell when you go out to turn your compost pile...

 

[knyland]

I would bet they compost pretty well, however you are going to have to deal with the smell when you go out to turn your compost pile...

She has a compost tumbler. Walk up and spin it a couple times and run away. That thing will make 50lbs of compost in about 2 weeks.

 

[Scratch]

Let me tell you that I've been in some pretty smelly situations ..... However not brew related. Those have sweet smell of malty hoppy goodness.
Try the smell of dead body for a week in a 90+ degree apartment...... Talk about knock you down smell..... Commence vomiting

What if the dead guy had just finished filling a trub- and hop-laden carboy with oxyclean before dying?

 

[klaggy]

What if the dead guy had just finished filling a trub- and hop-laden carboy with oxyclean before dying?

Omg this thread has taken on a life of its own...... For the record I'm a firefighter/ paramedic........ And sure does give one a unique perspective of life and humanity...

But yeah if "she" was mashing out and left her grains too oh ....... Yack!!!!


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[WiscoProud]

My pregnant wife would say the smell of liquid yeast is the worst. She can't even be in the room with an open package.

 

[livetaswim06]

I have noted the spent grains that smell like a over-eager corpse. Just to be original though. My buddy gave me his old homebrew equipment and it had a small bag of non-nitrogen flushed hops in there. I wanted to open them to see how they were. The smell was like rotting hops x100 and made me gag from just 1 oz. I couldn't drink any IPA or even go near hops for a couple weeks.