Acetone Smell?

[halminator]

Hi all, hope you can help me identify whats causing this really strong smell I'm getting.
Have had a break from brewing for a year, but since I got my hands on a free fridge I thought I'd get back on it by trying a few lagers. After cleaning and sterilizing everything, for my first batch I thought I'd be lazy and just used a fresh wort kit and Saflager W-34/70.

A couple of days later I opened the fridge and nearly fell over from the smell. It's a really strong achohol/acetone type smell that kinda burns your nose when you smell too much. I let this go for a few days just in case then dumped it after tasting it as it tasted as bad as it smelt.

I then hit the fermenter with a bleach solution and left it sit for a couple days. Washed everything really well replaced the tap and sterilized again with a no rinse solution and tried a Mexican cerveza can I still had in the pantry.

Same horrid smell is now coming out of this brew again?? :angry: I've never done a lager before at cold temps so am I doing something wrong or is the fermenter stuffed?

I've been searching around but can only find threads of people with rotten egg type problems not the acid type of smell I'm getting.
Thanks - Hal.

 

[RetsamHsam]

The Acetone smell comes from using fermenters made from cheap plastic or PVC.. Usually it would only be leached at high temperatures though, so if you are lagering it doesn't make much sense.

 

[bottle top]

Hi all, hope you can help me identify whats causing this really strong smell I'm getting.
Have had a break from brewing for a year, but since I got my hands on a free fridge I thought I'd get back on it by trying a few lagers. After cleaning and sterilizing everything, for my first batch I thought I'd be lazy and just used a fresh wort kit and Saflager W-34/70.

A couple of days later I opened the fridge and nearly fell over from the smell. It's a really strong achohol/acetone type smell that kinda burns your nose when you smell too much. I let this go for a few days just in case then dumped it after tasting it as it tasted as bad as it smelt.

I then hit the fermenter with a bleach solution and left it sit for a couple days. Washed everything really well replaced the tap and sterilized again with a no rinse solution and tried a Mexican cerveza can I still had in the pantry.

Same horrid smell is now coming out of this brew again?? :angry: I've never done a lager before at cold temps so am I doing something wrong or is the fermenter stuffed?

I've been searching around but can only find threads of people with rotten egg type problems not the acid type of smell I'm getting.
Thanks - Hal.

I've had the same acetone smell in a couple of brews. Not sure what the cause was but from memory it happened in successive brews. I bottled anyway and while unpalatable at first, the smell/flavour did dissipate and they ended up fine.

I've also had this smell in my sourdough cultures, but again it disappeared with time.

 

[halminator]

The Acetone smell comes from using fermenters made from cheap plastic or PVC.. Usually it would only be leached at high temperatures though, so if you are lagering it doesn't make much sense.

The fermenter I'm using is one of the blue water containers that you find in the camping section in BigW. Never had any problems with it in the past, but have never done a lager before.
The temp in the first brew was using a frsh wort kit so it would never have got above room temp.
Do you reckon it's worth just dumping the fermenter and getting another?

 

[beersom]

The Acetone smell is a high indicator of an infection from acetor-bactor.
If this is the case the beer will also have a thin whiteish film across the surface.

 

[bakkerman]

The acetone could also be thrown out by the yeast, the ester is called ethylacetate.

has a strong solvent like smell..

 

[floppinab]

Just looking a little further at your symptoms halmi, are you positive you aren't confusing your perception of an acetone aroma for what is a typical sulphury lager fermentation aroma???? Which can indeed burn your nose if you pull too much in.
Also some lager ferments are not particularly tasty mid-fermentation but a decent ferment time (2 weeks min.) plus some lagering cleans all that mess up and you end up with a tasty beer.

At the very least I'd hang on to some of the brew to see how it turns out.

 

[rich_lamb]

You can get acetone from the yeast but it wouldn't usually be that bad unless your yeast was in seriously bad shape. Far more likely to be an infection if it's that strong.
I'd probably discount the fermenter if you've already been using it a bit. But you could kill two birds with one stone by replacing it (if the infection is in your fermenter, or tap or something).

 

[mikem108]

How much yeast did you pitch? I usually find 2 packs of 34/70 needed in a lagering senario

 

[halminator]

Just looking a little further at your symptoms halmi, are you positive you aren't confusing your perception of an acetone aroma for what is a typical sulphury lager fermentation aroma???? Which can indeed burn your nose if you pull too much in.
Also some lager ferments are not particularly tasty mid-fermentation but a decent ferment time (2 weeks min.) plus some lagering cleans all that mess up and you end up with a tasty beer.

At the very least I'd hang on to some of the brew to see how it turns out.

Really? It smells worse than walking into one of those nail manicure shops that the missus goes to! I've never smelt the sulphur smell of a lager before and figured it would smell more like rotten egg gas, or the smell from a badly tuned car exhaust. This smell kinda burns...

Only pitched one packet of 34/70, and the krausen on top of the first brew looked alright but I haven't taken the lid off to look at the latest one.

Might hang onto this one for a week or so and see what happens. In the meantime I might look into getting another fermenter on the weekend just in case.

 

[Bribie G]

Yup as you suggest the sulphur smell comes out like eggs. I used to get it very often a couple of decades ago using the pretty ordinary malt extracts available at that time (e.g. Wander) which were intended more for cake and bikkie places such as Arnotts, and weren't really aimed at home brewing. I expect some batches had high sulphur content for some reason.
However have never had an 'acetone' off flavour.

Standard white fermenters are still quite reasonable at around $30 - I got a couple to start me off recently for $32 each on special which included taps and airlocks.

 

[rimrunner]

it might be just me but i wouldn't trust an old fermenter, espescially a coloured one.

 

[Weizguy]

Not sure about your cool-fermented acetone aroma, but I have experienced it a few times in brews that have been left on the yeast too long and at higher summer temperatures.

Sounds like the same thing, and the flavour does not fade, in my experience. I still have bottles that I have been keeping to see if the crud fades.

Acetobacter produces acetic acid, which is sour/vinegar and produces a white pellicle/ film on your brew. It doesn't sound like Acetobacter to me (no disrespect to beersom).

According to my Googling, this phenomenon is most likely caused by too warm a ferment or corn added in the mash. Any chance that the brew was started too warm?

A true lager yeast should still produce a lager-like beer, even when fermented out of the desirable temp range.

Prob no help from me here, but at least you have some facts.

Les