My Beer Tastes And Smells Like A Fart!

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I am curious why clean after 2 or 3 - Is the first time not dirty enough? How dirty do they need to be?

Hot water alone is not a substiute for cleaning.

Sanitiser will not work on a soiled surface.

You cant be a little bit clean, It is or it isnt - nothing personal


OK, great, would this lack of cleaning produce Sulphur smells and if so how so, it has never happened with this beer before? and there are no other obvious signs of infection.
 
OK, great, would this lack of cleaning produce Sulphur smells and if so how so, it has never happened with this beer before? and there are no other obvious signs of infection.

Possibly Yes
H2s is (hydrogen shulphide) and SO2 (sulphour Dioxide) are naturally produced via
  • Amino acid break down
  • Yeast strain
  • Fermentation conditions
  • It is reactive and produces Mercaptains and MBT (the light strike compound)
  • Bacterial spoilage byPectinatus, Zymomonas
  • Precursers in malt
  • insufficent boil
Of course in this case we could have reduced the liklyhood of the bacterial spoilage with correct hygeiene procedures
When I have a cold I have no visible signs of the bacteria causing the cold but im still infected.
Up to this point I have never been struck by lightning, ive just been lucky
 
OK, so can I rule out the fact that I may not have rinsed out the napisan or a reaction between napisan and morgans no rinse?

With this batch I DID clean and scrub the bottles then sanitise with no rinse.....so we can move on from that I think.
 
maybe try some new bottles (you can buy them ffrom Big W) AND some old bottles with your next batch...

if the old ones smell and the new ones dont.. the bottles are your problem..

If its not this, then get an experienced brwewer to look at your process, you may be missing something..


Process of elimination really.......
 
The times that I experienced the H2S it became obvious whilst the brew was in the fermenter probably around day 3-5 into fermentation.

I reckon you would of noticed it during fermentation if it's not your bottles.
 
Treid another bottle of this last night and it was fine, so either it is limited to a few bottles or it goes away after a while, oh well, might be a bit of a lottery, but at least I know it was not the fermentation or the yeast, must be a bottle thing.
 
I can understand you wanting to see where you when wrong but it seem like your wanting to try hard to keep the brew instead of tipping it....
I admire that... you must be a die hard brewer to stick by what you made!!!
 
Hi Tim,
The 'fart' or rotten egg smell you are experiencing is typically the odour given off in the beer by Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) which usually accumulates during lager fermentation. The amount of H2S varies between different lager strains, the composition of the wort and of course, the temp at which you ferment the lager at. It looks like you did have a genuine lager strain (possibly W34/70 if it was quite noticeable H2S after 8 to 10C fermentation). The common answer to your dilemma is time - it will take a long maturation time to remove the H2S to a level that will drop below your sensory threshold.
It's also possible, I'm afraid, that you'll never get rid of the rotten egg smell. I've done a bit of reading on this issue, and H2S in beer can result in the formation of other sulphur compounds, including mercaptans and 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol (which looks nasty, let alone the smell :blink: ) and they have very low sensory thresholds and are extremely difficult to remove from the beer. So, it may pay in future to give the beer a good two weeks in primary, rack to secondary and lift the beer off the yeast cake and get on with scrubbing out the H2S before bottling.
And finally, two points worth noting, based solely on my own experience - minimising oxygen uptake during racking and bottling does reduce the sulphur levels in the bottle, and if you get into kegging, you'll discover a real benefit in being able to force CO2 into the beer - and the H2S out of it by burping the keg. You might want to do a similar experiment with a couple of your bottles - take the lids off and then re-seal the bottles. You might find that it will help push the H2S out of solution if you carefully pop the bottle and then recap them. Unless you pasteurised the beer, you will have plenty of yeast in the bottles - check the sediment at the bottom of the bottles as proof, and this yeast, even though its small in size, may still be making H2S whilst the beer conditions in the bottle.
Cheers,
TL

No this is wrong... Its obviously from some1 you dont like opening and farting into all your bottles, then recapping them.
 
"I brewed this beer in the dead of winter using the can yeast which I believe is saflagar."

And there in lies the problem. I tasted a beer like this once and the person who brewed it said it was from out of date lager yeast the HB store was giving away. Who knows how the yeast has been treated.

For a couple of bucks, if brewing a lager, pay for a good pack of yeast.
 
Fermentis (the makers of the Saflager varieties) have a pretty good name. They make many well regarded dry yeasts. If you're gonna lash out on a better yeast you could do worse than try one of their yeasts.
 
The first Coopers Bavarian Lager i did had this issue too....

they were great after about 9 months in the bottle though! give em time...
 
I believe this to be the result of yeast growth - overcome by making a starter and pitching the slurry. (from experience). My starters often smell like a fart.

And fermenting at too low a temperature with a lager yeast - raise the ferment temp and it should reduce. Long periods in the bottle should reduce it too (from reading)
 
I believe this to be the result of yeast growth - overcome by making a starter and pitching the slurry. (from experience). My starters often smell like a fart.

And fermenting at too low a temperature with a lager yeast - raise the ferment temp and it should reduce. Long periods in the bottle should reduce it too (from reading)


ummmm, guys...i dont think raising the temp for a lager yeast is a good idea. That is the last thing I would ever do with a lager yeast...UNLESS i wanted for off flavours and shitty tastes. The only time you might raise temps is just before cold conditioning for day or two is for a diacetyl rest, if you can detect any.....

lager yeast & raised temps....= yuck

better to let it wait, 2-3 weeks at least and anywhere from 2weeks to 2months cold conditioning....

rendo
 
Hi guys,

I have a coopers bavarian lagar that tastes and smells very sulphury. I brewed this beer in the dead of winter using the can yeast which I believe is saflagar. It fermented at around 8* to 10* over about 3 weeks. During fermentation it stank the house out. I thought the stink had dissappeared when I bottled but it seems to have continued the sulphur production in the bottle. The bottles are now over two months old.


I was referring to the lower end of the 8 to 10C mentioned
 
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