3068 Worries

[Henno]

I have been making a heffeweizen starter very slowly, for about a week now. Reason for this is I wanted to keep some of it in slants and have only just gotten the gear and time to do the slants yesterday.

The 3068 I had trouble smacking and ended up pitching without the nutrient bag being broken and when I opened the pack got a whiff of rotten egg gas. After pouring as much as possible into my starter I had a taste and it was fine.

I have heard on many posts about doing the taste and smell test. What if you are passing one test and failing the other? Every time I crack the gas off my starter when the plastic bottle swells I get this horrible rotten egg smell but I assume when I am ready to pitch it will still taste fine. Is this a trate of the 3068 strain or have I bought a dud? When the liquids I bought from Pat arrived the ice pack they were packed in was completely melted and the yeast packs were almost warm to the touch.

Thanks as always to the gurus that reply
Henno

 

[trevc]

Not a guru here... however, I have used Wyeast 1388 a bunch of times, and it's shown the exact same nasty egg/sulphur smell. The starter smelled eggy when letting gas from the bottle, and the beers in bottles smelled (only very slightly) the same for the first 2 weeks of conditioning. The starter tasted good, the beer tasted great, and any traces of the egg smell were completely gone after 2 weeks. 6 weeks of ageing and it's now a fantastic strong belgian ale with the expected belgian aroma, slightly fruity/nutty. There's only 4 tallies left now.

Initially I thought this might have just been the first pack or a strange infection, but I've experienced the same with a second pack, and every starter made from it. My cleaning and sanitising routine is pretty full-on, so I would doubt anything was getting funked up.

Perhaps the 3068 is showing some similar traits?

 

[~MikE]

my last smack pack smelt a little like vommit. worked fine tho.

 

[Ronin]

I made a weizen with 3068 about 2 months ago...starter smelt like sulphur...beer fermented fine then finished smelling like sulphur...

I was a bit worried at bottling time, but the beer tasted fine. 3 weeks later in the bottle the most amazing weizen I've tasted.

What I did notice is that the starter and the beer didn't start smelling funky until activity had finished. While it was fermenting it smelt cleaner.

Must be a trait of 3068...it does clean up given time. If it's the same smell as mine, I wouldn't worry.

James

 

[trevc]

I made a weizen with 3068 about 2 months ago...starter smelt like sulphur...beer fermented fine then finished smelling like sulphur...

I was a bit worried at bottling time, but the beer tasted fine. 3 weeks later in the bottle the most amazing weizen I've tasted.

What I did notice is that the starter and the beer didn't start smelling funky until activity had finished. While it was fermenting it smelt cleaner.

Must be a trait of 3068...it does clean up given time. If it's the same smell as mine, I wouldn't worry.

James

My 1388 was exactly the same. The egg smell started after it had finished fermenting, but not during. I forgot to mention that.

Maybe this is common among some of the Belgian yeasts?

 

[pmolou]

My 1388 was exactly the same. The egg smell started after it had finished fermenting, but not during. I forgot to mention that.

Maybe this is common among some of the Belgian yeasts?

yer both my saison and abbeyII yeasts smelled sweet the first two days then after a week like rotten eggs eaten by someone then thrown up :icon_vomit: haha but after 2 weeks smelled spicy mmmmm

must be a belgian signature or maybe it could be from high fermentation temps?

 

[Inge]

Just curious, what was the gravity of your starter? I've found that pitching 3068 into wort gravities lower than 1030 will ultimately let off that horrendous smell. I'm inclined to think that what you are smelling is actually autolysis. It's like the yeast have an appetiser, but no main course, so they resort to snacking on each other.

The best way to remedy this is to make a starter wort of 1.040 and pitch into. A 3068 starter should smell like banana bread dough, and taste almost like a weizen.

 

[trevc]

Mine started at 17C, and gradually went to 23C over the week (not intentionally). Although, it seems to have worked quite well for this yeast (the 1388).

 

[Ronin]

Just curious, what was the gravity of your starter? I've found that pitching 3068 into wort gravities lower than 1030 will ultimately let off that horrendous smell. I'm inclined to think that what you are smelling is actually autolysis. It's like the yeast have an appetiser, but no main course, so they resort to snacking on each other.

The best way to remedy this is to make a starter wort of 1.040 and pitch into. A 3068 starter should smell like banana bread dough, and taste almost like a weizen.

The weizen I made was 1.040, not the highest gravity but not extremely low.

 

[Inge]

The weizen I made was 1.040, not the highest gravity but not extremely low.

How much did you pitch? And what was the total volume?

 

[Ronin]

yer both my saison and abbeyII yeasts smelled sweet the first two days then after a week like rotten eggs eaten by someone then thrown up :icon_vomit: haha but after 2 weeks smelled spicy mmmmm

must be a belgian signature or maybe it could be from high fermentation temps?

I know the beer I brewed stayed below 20C the entire time. A heat belt and fridgemate in winter keeps temps fairly steady. In fact this was the only time I've been able to keep 3068 below 20C, the other 2 wheat beers I've made were in summer. When I smelt it I though it must be the low temps that are doing it.

 

[Ronin]

How much did you pitch? And what was the total volume?

I brew 10L batches, and I pitches a 500mL starter. I've never actually taken a gravity reading of my starter...I'll do that next time and see what I get.

 

[Inge]

It's possible that the yeast were damaged in transit from the heat, but I wouldn't think it would be hot enough to completely ruin it. 3068 yeast out of the packet smells fruity when fresh.

I split each Wyeast packet into four labeled sterile tubes and pitch one of these tubes into a 500mL 1040 starter, and after 3 or 4 days I have enough active healthy yeast to pitch into 21 litres.

I think that pitching a whole pack into a 500mL 1040 starter is overkill, and you might have problems with autolytic flavours if there is not enough food to go around, so to speak. If you are pitching a whole packet, try bumping the starter size up to a litre, same gravity, making sure you decant off the wort before pitching the slurry. Although with wheat beers, I've heard quite a few people saying that they get the best results by underpitching slightly to stress the yeast to produce the esters. A 1L starter is a lot of yeast for a 10L batch.

This is what I think is the problem.

To summarise, you could try splitting your yeast into seperate tubes and pitching smaller amounts into the smaller starters. Or make the pitch the whole packet into a larger starter and increase your batch size to 20L.

 

[Henno]

Um, getting back to the poor old thread starter's problems I pitched my first starter into about 200ml of 1040 or maybe even over this due to boil off, could have been closer to 1050 actually. I have worked up to a litre and yesterday plonked another litre of 1040 exactly onto it. I am going to be doing two 23L batches with it. Still get the sulphury eggy smell today.

As a kegger I don't need bottle conditioning time. Should I CC for a while to let this smell vent off, if so should I CC uncarbed with just a head of CO2 on it? I spose I could pour a little glass every now and then of it uncarbed to see how the smell is going.

 

[Inge]

Um, getting back to the poor old thread starter's problems I pitched my first starter into about 200ml of 1040 or maybe even over this due to boil off, could have been closer to 1050 actually. I have worked up to a litre and yesterday plonked another litre of 1040 exactly onto it. I am going to be doing two 23L batches with it. Still get the sulphury eggy smell today.

As a kegger I don't need bottle conditioning time. Should I CC for a while to let this smell vent off, if so should I CC uncarbed with just a head of CO2 on it? I spose I could pour a little glass every now and then of it uncarbed to see how the smell is going.

Sorry dude! :icon_cheers:

If it tastes fine then it should be fine to pitch, as long as you decant the wort and only pitch the slurry. I was always hesitant to pitch stinky starters, but thinking about it, the odour should be CO2 scrubbed from the wort during fermentation.

 

[Henno]

Finally pitched this yeast. It smelled foul but tasted ok, very tart though. I hope the beer doesn't taste that tart. It will be 46L down the gurgler if it is.

I also innoculated my first slants with this yeast. God knows how that will go as the slants were a bit wet and now I hear from my man Zwickel that I shouldn't put starsan near slants! Live and learn I spose.

I will try leaving it for as long as possible in the keg/kegs to see if I can scrub off the eggy smell if it persists through the ferment.

 

[Weizguy]

Yeast produce sulphur smells when stressed. This goes for lager yeast fermented cool and weizen yeast toward the end of fermentation, as well as a number of Belgian yeasts etc.

I recommend that you allow the gas to vent for a couple of days after the ferment is complete, before bottling or kegging.

 

[Henno]

Thanks Les,

If that's so did I do something wrong to stress this yeast? I got the smell the whole way through producing this starter as well, straight from day one.

Regarding venting at the risk of sounding like a complete thicky derr head how do I do that? Just leave it in the fermenter for a few days on the yeast cake after I get a stable FG and then crash it for another day or so before I keg?

Or should I actually take the lid off for a few days to vent!!!? sounds radical.