Stinky Yeast? Attempts At Rinsing Yeast

[The Giant]

Howdy All

From Wolfys awesome post about rinsing yeast I thought I would give it a crack with a recent Hefeweizin I made. The yeast was the liquid w labs hefewezin yeast.

Anyway, its been going on for about 2 weeks now as I have been away the last week. I cracked the bottle last night to take out the crappy water and add some fresh water and boy did it stink!!! Is this normal? Hard to put my finger on it but was really pungent, almost like rotten egg or hanging around the mud baths at rotorua.

My sanitation has been spot on, and the last 2 times i just tipped the dirty water out of the bottle and added fresh cooled boiled water to the bottle and shook up to rinse again. It has been at room temp the whole time and looks perfectly like the yeast I got in the test tube from the LHBS. But it has never smelt like that.

Ideas???

Cheers
Steve

 

[stux]

Howdy All

From Wolfys awesome post about rinsing yeast I thought I would give it a crack with a recent Hefeweizin I made. The yeast was the liquid w labs hefewezin yeast.

Anyway, its been going on for about 2 weeks now as I have been away the last week. I cracked the bottle last night to take out the crappy water and add some fresh water and boy did it stink!!! Is this normal? Hard to put my finger on it but was really pungent, almost like rotten egg or hanging around the mud baths at rotorua.

My sanitation has been spot on, and the last 2 times i just tipped the dirty water out of the bottle and added fresh cooled boiled water to the bottle and shook up to rinse again. It has been at room temp the whole time and looks perfectly like the yeast I got in the test tube from the LHBS. But it has never smelt like that.

Ideas???

Cheers
Steve

Hmmm

I don't think I would use that.

I've split WYeast packets into 4 30ml vials, even the 3068, and it doesn't smell like that. But I've also tried the yeast washing and even though I've been as careful as I can be I've always managed little stupid infections...

So, I just split a fresh packet four times and use Generation Zero yeast for every brew now.

After all, it doesn't take a lot of wasted batches to spoil any savings!

Make a starter first, and taste that. It better taste like beer before you throw it into your main batch!

 

[Wolfy]

Hefeweizin yeast can be a bit stinky/weird/funky, so that in-itself might not be a problem - sulfur smells while fermenting are not unusual.

However, I'm not sure why you stored it at room temp for 2 weeks, if you did a large portion of the cells will have died, and what you might be smelling is the (often Vegemite type) smells from the dead yeast cells.

 

[The Giant]

I actually went to NZ for a wedding for the weekend and ended up getting stuck in Christchurch cause of the snow and got picked up from the airport and went straight to straddy for the next holiday, so never got a chance of sticking it in the fridge.

Should have just put it in the fridge from day 1. Was a good chance to practice the art of rinsing yeast though.

Will do so for the next one but in the fridge from Day 1. The smell has only come about in the last week, i never noticed it the few days before that but that Vegemite type thing is close to what I'm smelling so I dare say they are dead.

Thanks guys

 

[cdbrown]

Rinsing only needs to happen once or twice after you put the slurry in the jars. Generally it only takes about 30mins for the stuff to settle before pouring off the unwanted stuff. Repeat if you like and then bottle and chill. You can rinse cold as well but that seems to only benefit in getting rid of the "beer" rather than the dead cells on the bottom.