green funk on my yeast cake

[bearg]

Howdy, I've just ventured into homebrew via the coopers kit from bigw. My first brew was the included stocko coopers lager - using a us-05 yeast at 18 degrees in my vintec "beer brewing" fridge. It's going ok - one week after bottling, a bit cidery - could be the brew enhancer 1? The second I had was pretty good at 2 weeks. The third at 2 weeks was also cidery. I'll give it another month in the bottle before judging.

My second brew was a coopers pale ale, brew enhancer 2, us-05 yeast at 18 degrees. I ferment in the coopers vat for 2 weeks then bottle straight from it. Seemed ok to taste when bottling. Got greedy so a few of my pint bottles are cloudy. I'm looking into a secondary fermenter, but as I rollout back to back brews I can't refrigerate it.

Third brew - got fancy. Boiled up 500gm coopers DLME + 20g Tatinger hops. Put it with the kit Coopers Mexican Cerveza with a S23 yeast at 13 degrees. Ok it's not fancy, but it was pushing my limits atm. Thing is, it's got a bit of an odor - a little bit of bad egg fart. Not much - I've had much worse after an Indian curry. Also there is a lot of green in the white/brown yeast cake. Is this just the hops I've added in? I'm not about to abort, but being new to this I'm super paranoid about infection. I'll attach a photo if I can. I may have dropped the lid of the kit brew into the fermenter...

 

[manticle]

Green = hops
egg = hydrogen sulfide, often produced by yeasts, especially lager yeasts.

Ferment out, condition (look up diacetyl rest), lager, be patient and all will be well.

 

[bearg]

Thanks mate

 

[bearg]

I forgot to mention - first brew was primed with the coopers carbonation drops... then the ants got to 'em

2nd brew was primed with 1/2 teaspoon of white sugar - I'm bottling in the little creatures 565ml pint bottles btw.

Also the the 3rd brew had a full packet of BE2 added after the boil... should be 5.5%? OG: 46 but my last 2 only dropped to a FG of 10 and started out at 36 and 39 respectively.

I'm struggling to bring that initial temp down before I add the yeast (even with bottles of cold water prepped + ice) and don't want to leave it too long... don't seem to have killed a yeast yet though

Last batch i put in the brew fridge for a few hours before adding the yeast, seeing as it's a lager, time will tell I guess...

 

[wbosher]

What sort of volume are you boiling? Should be pretty simple to bring down a few litres in an ice bath in less than 30 minutes

 

[carniebrew]

For cooling, boil a couple of litres of water and put it into a 2l ice-cream container and in your freezer. Add that post boil and it'll knock your temps down in no time.