My Fermenting Wort Stinks

[stueywhytcross]

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

ale, us-05.

 

[dicko]

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

hi Pedro,

Well my dilutions according to that info that I downloaded are way out for the London profile above.

A quick calculation on the three additives without splitting hairs over quantities shows that for the 79 litres in your example if I had used the formula I would have had;

CaCl 15.8 gramms (should have been 4.21 gramms)

CaS04 3.95 gramms (should have been 12.64 gramms)

CaC03 1.58 gramms (should have been 8.43 gramms)

Well this just goes to show-
DO NOT JUST BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ ON THE INTERNET until you have checked the info.

So Pedro, do you think that the massive amount of CaCl and the lack of CaS04 in my brewing water may be causing the problem with the smell??

I hope so!!

Cheers

 

[Gulf Brewery]

So Pedro, do you think that the massive amount of CaCl and the lack of CaS04 in my brewing water may be causing the problem with the smell??

I hope so!!

Cheers

It certainly won't have helped. The CaSO4 is needed to get the calcium up to the right level for healthy yeast, so between that and the high Cl, it probably wouldn't be good. Did you have relatively high FG with these batches?

Cheers
Pedro

 

[nqtrancer]

One idea i guess would be to get a Reverse osmosis kit from ebay for 100~, then build up your water profile, enabling you to have the perfect brewing water.

 

[TasChris]

Hi Dicko,
I too have recently changed from town water to rain water and have noticed that my beers all went rather bland, with little malt flavour and little hop bite coming thru. I also noticed that I was getting very little break, neither hot or cold break material, and the levels of carbonation seemed a lot lower than they used to be.
I have since brewed one batch with additions to my mash and sparge water. I used promash to appoximate London water as I thought it was a middle of the road water profile.
I added

Gypsum 1.0g mash 2g sparge
Epsom 0.5g and 1 g
Baking Soda 1.3g and 2.75g
Calcium Chloride 0.5g and 1g
Chalk 1.0g and 2g

for 13 litre mash and 26 litre sparge.
I haven't noticed any funny smells but my levels of additions seem quite different to you.
Don't know if this helps at all!!
Cheers
Chris

 

[dicko]

It certainly won't have helped. The CaSO4 is needed to get the calcium up to the right level for healthy yeast, so between that and the high Cl, it probably wouldn't be good. Did you have relatively high FG with these batches?

Cheers
Pedro

Hi Pedro,

The highest SG was 1056 for the porter, the others were between 1045 and 1052.

Cheers

 

[dicko]

Hi Dicko,
I too have recently changed from town water to rain water and have noticed that my beers all went rather bland, with little malt flavour and little hop bite coming thru. I also noticed that I was getting very little break, neither hot or cold break material, and the levels of carbonation seemed a lot lower than they used to be.
I have since brewed one batch with additions to my mash and sparge water. I used promash to appoximate London water as I thought it was a middle of the road water profile.
I added

Gypsum 1.0g mash 2g sparge
Epsom 0.5g and 1 g
Baking Soda 1.3g and 2.75g
Calcium Chloride 0.5g and 1g
Chalk 1.0g and 2g

for 13 litre mash and 26 litre sparge.
I haven't noticed any funny smells but my levels of additions seem quite different to you.
Don't know if this helps at all!!
Cheers
Chris

Hi TasChris,

Rainwater needs additions to work properly.
My mistake has been just following blindly instructions that are now thanks to Pedro have been shown to be totally inaccurate.
I have sat down last night and made up new profile additions for all water types based on a dilution rate of 100gramms of salts in 1 litre of water and followed the table in Promash.
I tend to brew mainly 50 litre batches and use generally around 75 litres of brewing water all up.
Thanks for the table as it would easily be scaled up to suit a larger batch.

nqtrancer

I have considered an RO system but for most purposes clean rain water should be OK
I will do another brew based on my new found calculations to see how it goes and I will report back.

Cheers

 

[3G]

Sorry to hear about your dramas.
Im currently using rain water and making additions to mash and sparge liguor with promash. Id suggest a set of digital scales accurate to .01 of a gram from ebay for $30 delivered.
The water profile makes an incredible difference to malt and hop flavour.

 

[dicko]

Sorry to hear about your dramas.
Im currently using rain water and making additions to mash and sparge liguor with promash. Id suggest a set of digital scales accurate to .01 of a gram from ebay for $30 delivered.
The water profile makes an incredible difference to malt and hop flavour.

Hi Greg J
,
That sounds like good value for a set of scales that read that low.
I will have a scout around on Ebay for some.

Cheers

 

[dicko]

Hi all,

For those that may be interested, I put an AG brew down mid week and it is bubbling away madly as I type.
I made the water from rain water to resemble "London" on promash as per the promash additions.
I used the K97 german ale yeast because that was the one that seemed to throw the worst smell.
And the important bit is that the only smell coming from the fermenter now is that of "beer" and not of rotten egg.
I think that I am finally on top of my problem and will definately put it down to incorrect water salt additions causing stress to the yeast.. :super:

Just as a second note, one of the beers that held this terrible smell was a German Pils with lager yeast S189.
I had racked it off the yeast cake when fermentation was complete and it had a diacetyl rest and after two weeks in the cubes in the fridge it still smelt badly.
I need this beer for a BBQ tomorrow so I thought that I would filter it to try and clean it up.
I ran it through a 1 micron absolute filter but the smell remained.
I then decided to give it a dose of Polyclar and let it settle for 48 hours in the fridge and then ran it through a .5 micron absolute filter and it has turned out an excellent example of that style with no smell at all. I am looking forward to serving it to friends tomorrow.

Another thing that I noted was the kit beers that I did for my son had that smell and I used tap water (town supply) so I think that the high levels of chlorides in that water were causing this as well.

Cheers,

 

[yardy]

Hi all,

For those that may be interested, I put an AG brew down mid week and it is bubbling away madly as I type.
I made the water from rain water to resemble "London" on promash as per the promash additions.
I used the K97 german ale yeast because that was the one that seemed to throw the worst smell.
And the important bit is that the only smell coming from the fermenter now is that of "beer" and not of rotten egg.
I think that I am finally on top of my problem and will definately put it down to incorrect water salt additions causing stress to the yeast.. :super:


Cheers,

good news dicko, glad you got it sorted B) , i love that yeast btw, got one in the bucket atm.

Cheers
Yardy

 

[dicko]

good news dicko, glad you got it sorted B) , i love that yeast btw, got one in the bucket atm.

Cheers
Yardy

Hi Yardy,

I am impressed with the K97 it gives great attenuation but leave the malt flavour to be appreciated. I find it clears quite well too if left in a cube in the fridge for a week or so.

Cheers