My Fermenting Wort Stinks

[dicko]

Hi all,

I have a situation which is starting to PMO.

Since moving house I have had a lot of trouble with my brewing.
I have put this down to the different water that is now available as the "town" supply.

I decided that I would use rain water from my new tank and add the appropriate salts to it as required for style and not to use the supply that was high in chlorides and hardness and loaded with chlorine.

After trauling the net and various publications I came up with some standard addition tables which I decided to adopt.

The link to them now no longer works for me but the table was as follows -

................................................................................
..............................................................

A minimum requirement for all beers to provide enough CALCIUM for fermentation and PH is as follows;

CaCl calcium chloride
Add 200 gramms of CaCl to 1 litre of clean water and then add 1 ml of this solution per 1 litre of mash liquer.

CaSo4 calcium sulphate (gypsum)
Add 50 gramms to 1 litre of clean water and add 1 ml of this solution per 1 litre of mash liquer.
You may add 1/2 this rate for german pilseners and X2 the rate for IPA's
Do not use in Bohemian Pilseners

CaCo3 Calcium carbonate
Add 20 gramms to 1 litre of clean water and add 1 ml of this solution per litre of mash liquer.
Use only in Stouts and Porters.

Gypsum and Chalk will settle out in the solution and need to be shaken to mix thoroughly.

................................................................................
..............................................................

So, whats the problem?

Since I have been using this method I have found that my beers have a rotten egg gas smell while fermenting and then lingers on into the finished brew even after sitting in the cube for a couple of weeks to settle and condition.
When served in a glass it smell like someone has just broken wind.

I have brewed a pretty basic Aussie ale, a German Pilsener, an Alt, A Robust Porter, an IPA and two Kit and Kilo beers for my son and a mate who have just set up keg systems.

The Alt and the Porter, and the IPA had only slight hints of the smell with all the rest pretty bad.
I have used a variety of yeasts ( all dried).The Aussie Ale had us56 as did the IPA.
The german pilsener had s189 as did one of the kits and the Alt.
The other kit had German Ale K97.
The Porter used an So4

I was initially blaming the yeast but the problem seems to exist without isolating a particular yeast.
I am now blaming the additions to the brewing water.

Seeing that the smell is sulphur related, do you think that the addition of CaSo4 may be too great for what I am trying to achieve?

Any thoughts or constructive ideas would be most appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Guest Lurker]

I guess the smell is hydrogen sulphide. As I understand it yeasts produce this when stressed to try to create chemically reducing conditions. So maybe the yeast is using the gypsum to make the hydrogen sulphide but I think that is not the root cause. I would look at yeast nutrient. Are you using aussie malts? Aussie malts tend to be deficient in at least zinc and probably other trace metals. These arent available from your water which is pure rain, so I would definitely be adding nutrient, to see if that makes the yeast less stressed. Maybe try with no salt additions, just the nutrient, to see what happens for a brew.

 

[newguy]

The farm where I grew up had ridiculously hard water. It smelled like rotten eggs and if you happened to drink it (and live), your emissions did too. Have you tried brewing with rain water alone - no mineral additions at all?

 

[dicko]

I guess the smell is hydrogen sulphide. As I understand it yeasts produce this when stressed to try to create chemically reducing conditions. So maybe the yeast is using the gypsum to make the hydrogen sulphide but I think that is not the root cause. I would look at yeast nutrient. Are you using aussie malts? Aussie malts tend to be deficient in at least zinc and probably other trace metals. These arent available from your water which is pure rain, so I would definitely be adding nutrient, to see if that makes the yeast less stressed. Maybe try with no salt additions, just the nutrient, to see what happens for a brew.

Hi GL,

Thanks for the reply.
I was thinking (maybe incorrectly) that the use of yeast nutrient was the cause so I didn't add any to the last brew which was the Porter. This would be the beer with the least smell to it. I was thinking it may have been masked to a degree by the dark malts.
This is also the only beer that I added the Ca Co3 in the brewing liquer.
I have used a combination of both JW malts and Weyermann in the appropriate recipes

Hi Newguy,

I have tried that at my last home and all it caused was a sluggish ferment etc etc.
and while i can see the way that you are thinking I really don't want to go down that path.

Cheers

 

[yardy]

sooo, the smell wasn't evident with the town water supply ?

why not see what sort of a beer results in a simple filtering of the town water, just a 10 lt bucket with a Brita filter fitted in the base is possibly a cheap way to find out.

no expert, just my 2 bobs

Cheers
Yardy

 

[dicko]

sooo, the smell wasn't evident with the town water supply ?

why not see what sort of a beer results in a simple filtering of the town water, just a 10 lt bucket with a Brita filter fitted in the base is possibly a cheap way to find out.

no expert, just my 2 bobs

Cheers
Yardy

Hi Yardy,

Thanks for the reply.
The town water that comes into my house is filtered by a unit fitted outside.
The reason I was concerned about the town water was the fact that the brews I did with it had very poor head retention and the hop balance was all out of wack with the recipes that I had successfully brewed at the old house.
The water at my new address is drawn from a different source than the old place.
I sent the water from the new house away for analysis and it came back with very high chlorides.
I cant show you the results now due to a computer crash where I lost the emailed report.
The people that did the report said the water was very unsuitable for brewing.

Cheers

 

[yardy]

sorry then mate, that's about the limit of my expertise, maybe give the rain water a filter and a pre-boil just to see if that solves the problem ?

hope you sort it

Cheers
Yardy

 

[dicko]

sorry then mate, that's about the limit of my expertise, maybe give the rain water a filter and a pre-boil just to see if that solves the problem ?

hope you sort it

Cheers
Yardy

Yeah cheers mate as I said it is really p'ing me off at the moment.

I might add that when I was having trouble with the town water I was waiting for it to rain to fill our new tank I went and bought enough water from the supermarket to do a 15 litre brew.
I did an Alt and it is without a doubt one of the best beers I have ever done.
So I really think the problem is related to the water or the additions.

Cheers

 

[jonw]

I sent the water from the new house away for analysis and it came back with very high chlorides.

If I recall corretly, chlorine (a.k.a. chloride ions) will dissipate if you let your brewing water stand overnight. If you have high chloramine levels, you can add a half tab of sodium metabisulphite (camden tablet) to get rid of it.

Cheers,

Jon

 

[Leigh]

You might want to have your rainwater tested...depending on your location, you could be getting industrial pollution settling on your roof, slight acid rain or just dust and decaying eaves...or it could be possum and bird excreta etc etc.

Just because it fell from the sky doesn't make it pure when it is in the tank

Alternatively, there are chlorine removing tablets on the market, you basically fill a bucket with tap water, add the tablet and wait for the resulting salt to settle, decant or syphon the lower chlorine water off the top...

 

[Tony]

I was going to say...... Have you tried bought water but seems you have........ and it worked.

What is the tank like mate? Is it an old gal tank, concrete, plastic? Dont know much about chemicals that may leach from an old tank?

If you have had the town water tested, perhaps do the same with the tank water.

I remember when growing up we went and checked the tanks. They had countless dead frogs floating around. The water tasted fine, noone got sick but they got drained and cleaned out anyway.

cheers

 

[stueywhytcross]

You might want to have your rainwater tested...depending on your location, you could be getting industrial pollution settling on your roof, slight acid rain or just dust and decaying eaves...or it could be possum and bird excreta etc etc.

Just because it fell from the sky doesn't make it pure when it is in the tank

Alternatively, there are chlorine removing tablets on the market, you basically fill a bucket with tap water, add the tablet and wait for the resulting salt to settle, decant or syphon the lower chlorine water off the top...

where do you send water to get it tested?

 

[Stuster]

Just a different thought is that this might be contamination, perhaps wild yeast. Any chance that an infection has taken hold since the batch you did with bought water or did you do that batch in the middle of this run? :huh:

 

[dicko]

I was going to say...... Have you tried bought water but seems you have........ and it worked.

What is the tank like mate? Is it an old gal tank, concrete, plastic? Dont know much about chemicals that may leach from an old tank?

If you have had the town water tested, perhaps do the same with the tank water.

I remember when growing up we went and checked the tanks. They had countless dead frogs floating around. The water tasted fine, noone got sick but they got drained and cleaned out anyway.

cheers

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the reply,

The tank was new in January 08 and it is Aquaplate (I think you call it)
We had to wait for rain so it would fill and I diverted the first lot that came off our roof.

i got the town water tested free of charge from a crowd in Sydney who supplied us with a magnetic system that is supposed to stop calcium build up in water heaters etc by breaking down the ions or some such theory.

Leigh,

We are in a new area for housing and we aren't close to industry at all.

jonw,

I was boiling my brewing water to drive off the chlorine both at the old house and the new one.

I also have a filter on the outlet of the rainwater tank.
The smell only started when I began using the rain water with the salt additions.

I think for my next brew I will try what Guest Lurker suggested and forget the water additions and just add nutrient to the boil.

Cheers

 

[dicko]

Just a different thought is that this might be contamination, perhaps wild yeast. Any chance that an infection has taken hold since the batch you did with bought water or did you do that batch in the middle of this run? :huh:

Hi Stuster,
I had thought about that as well so I have deliberately rotated fermenters and cubes with no result.
The batch I did with the bought water was before this smell started to occur. It was done to prove that the poor head retention and the unbalanced hop bitterness was caused by the town water.

I hope there is no wild yeast growing in my new garage although I have fermented the lagers in the fermenter fridge along with some ales and some others like the Porter on the bench with a heat belt for the cold nights. My garage doesn't vary more than a few degrees from day to night during these cold months due to it being part of the house.

As I said I will give GL's theory a go and see what happens.

BTW if I pour a glass and let it stand for a while, the smell goes and the beers are good which I think would rule out an infection.

Cheers

 

[stueywhytcross]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the reply,

The tank was new in January 08 and it is Aquaplate (I think you call it)
We had to wait for rain so it would fill and I diverted the first lot that came off our roof.

i got the town water tested free of charge from a crowd in Sydney who supplied us with a magnetic system that is supposed to stop calcium build up in water heaters etc by breaking down the ions or some such theory.

Leigh,

We are in a new area for housing and we aren't close to industry at all.

jonw,

I was boiling my brewing water to drive off the chlorine both at the old house and the new one.

I also have a filter on the outlet of the rainwater tank.
The smell only started when I began using the rain water with the salt additions.

I think for my next brew I will try what Guest Lurker suggested and forget the water additions and just add nutrient to the boil.

Cheers

I use rain water from a plastic tank i bought new last year. I also experienced a sulpher rotten egg gas smell on one of my last all grain brews. However i recently discovered that it was caused from using a stronger than recommended dose of sodium metabisuplhite to sanitise everything and not letting it dry before using equipment....Does the smell eventually go away? Mine has been in bottle for 4 weeks and it has weakend a bit....but still very off putting. Should i just tip them now?

 

[dicko]

I use rain water from a plastic tank i bought new last year. I also experienced a sulpher rotten egg gas smell on one of my last all grain brews. However i recently discovered that it was caused from using a stronger than recommended dose of sodium metabisuplhite to sanitise everything and not letting it dry before using equipment....Does the smell eventually go away? Mine has been in bottle for 4 weeks and it has weakend a bit....but still very off putting. Should i just tip them now?

hi DS,

I dont use sodium metabisulphide and my sanitising and cleaning regime has not changed at all.

I haven't kept a beer over time to see if it eventually goes away but as I said above, leave it stand in the glass and note the difference if any after 5 minutes.

Are you using lager yeasts or is this happening with ale yeasts as well.
I have had the smell with lager yeasts but in the past the beer has cleaned up with a bit of conditioning over time. I have never had this with ale yeasts.

Cheers

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Hi Dicko

Do you have/use Promash? The figures out of that for the brewing water are reasonably accurate.

If you don't have that, tell me what profile of water you want to reach and I will work out some figures for you so you can compare to the figures you have.

Cheers
Pedro

 

[dicko]

Hi Dicko

Do you have/use Promash? The figures out of that for the brewing water are reasonably accurate.

If you don't have that, tell me what profile of water you want to reach and I will work out some figures for you so you can compare to the figures you have.

Cheers
Pedro

Hi Pedro,

In my original post the additions to the water I was trying to keep as simple as possible.
By using the mixing formula above I was hoping to KIS
I have and use Promash and I have gone through the various water/salt additions for the different styles.
For example - using the mixing formula,
With the Robust Porter I added to the 75 litres of liquor for mashing and sparging, 75 mls of CaCl,
75 mls of CaS04 and 75 mls of CaC03

For the German Pilsener -
I added 75 mls of CaCl, and 37 mls of CaS04 with no CaC03 addition in this beer.
And so on for the various styles that I have recently brewed.

I think that this is the link that I used to get the mixing ratios but I cant seem to open it now on my computer since I had a major crash. (bloody dodgy porn) :lol: No! No! not that link!

http://melbournebrewers.org/wiki/TonyWheel...r+Treatment.pdf

Cheers

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Dicko

My calculations for a London profile water starting from distilled which is probably a good starting point for rain water.

Mash 53 litres
Gypsum CaSO4 8.44g
Baking Soda NaHCO3 4.22g
Calcium Chloride CaCl2 2.81g
Chalk CaCO3 5.63g

Sparge 26 litres
Gypsum CaSO4 4.20g
Baking Soda NaHCO3 2.10g
Calcium Chloride CaCl2 1.40g
Chalk CaCO3 2.80g

Edit: - You will need to check the dilutions that you used against this - my first check looked screwy.

Cheers
Pedro