Sulphur Taste

[cozmocracker]

i brewed a crown lager kit(it was a present so dont shoot me), it used the saflager s23 yeast, you could smell the sulphur smell out the airlock. problem is every sample i tasted, tasted like the smell coming from the airlock, i thought it would go away with time but after cold conditioning in secondary for 4 weeks its still there. its been mentioned it might be a DMS infection, but i used the yeastcake to do another brew and havent had the same problem, at least that ive noticed. any suggestions would be great, im considering dumping it because its undrinkable at the moment. please help!

cheers cozmo

 

[Bribie G]

Is it boiled eggs sulphur or rotten cabbage sulphur? I always get eggy sulphur coming off with Fermentis lager yeasts but it goes away in the bottle. I have had one only case of a cabbagey sulphur but that was due to an infection from a dirty tap in my urn, I'm pretty sure, and that just got worse in the bottle.

If I were you I would bottle or keg and take samples every few days. If it doesn't go away it could be an infection. As I found out with my cabbage soup brew an infection doesn't necessarily render 25 litres of toxic waste but can give weird off flavours that make the beer still drinkable at a pinch but it's a disappointment every time you drink one, so prolly dump it.

 

[rclemmett]

If the other one is fine then I wouldn't think its an infection. How long did you leave it in the primary for? Are you trying the sample from the secondary or is it kegged/bottled? If from secondary, what temp is it?

Oh yeah, what was the recipe of the bad one and the good one?

 

[cozmocracker]

dam just took a sample from the second brew and the taste IS there, just slightly but there, dam underneath the bad taste i could taste what would of been a good brew. so is this DMS(which is what i am assuming it to be) bad for you? any cure? or is the vegie patch getting a good drink tonight!

as for eggy or cabbagy, i suppose i would lean towards cabbagy.

as for how long in primary, close to 3 weeks at 12degrees then 2nd for close to 4 weeks.

as for recipes, both brewcraft kits,1st crown lager, 2nd becks.

 

[rclemmett]

dam just took a sample from the second brew and the taste IS there, just slightly but there, dam underneath the bad taste i could taste what would of been a good brew. so is this DMS(which is what i am assuming it to be) bad for you? any cure? or is the vegie patch getting a good drink tonight!

as for eggy or cabbagy, i suppose i would lean towards cabbagy.

as for how long in primary, close to 3 weeks at 12degrees then 2nd for close to 4 weeks.

as for recipes, both brewcraft kits,1st crown lager, 2nd becks.

Go buy a generic lager, say a crown, and try drinking it at 12C. Without tasting it I can only hypothesise, but I'm not surprised it tastes sulphury at 12C.

 

[cozmocracker]

sorry, to make it clearer, it has been at 2 degrees for weeks now(cold conditioning) , it was at 12degrees for fermenting, but the taste has been there all along.

 

[Spartan 117]

Given that there is sulphur in most productions of alcohol from the yeast, grain, hops etc. i reckon you've formed "thioethers" from broken down proteins/amino acids. As far as i now thioethers will only form in a fairly low Ph so maybe next time you could add a buffer if you havent done so already. I'll whip out the organic chemistry text books when i get home see if I'm right in what I'm saying.

Aaron

 

[rclemmett]

sorry, to make it clearer, it has been at 2 degrees for weeks now(cold conditioning) , it was at 12degrees for fermenting, but the taste has been there all along.

Sorry cozmo, didn't mean to be rude but alot of people use terminology incorrectly. You obviously aren't one of them. Once again, I can only hypothosise but it doesn't sound good. Likely culprit DMS............

DMS AND SIMILAR COMPOUNDS

CHARACTERISTICS: Volatile sulfur-based compounds that can give beer a taste and aroma of cooked corn, celery, cabbage or parsnip to almost oystery-shellfish-like in high concentrations. These include dimethyl sulfide (DMS), diethyl sulfide, and di-isopropyl sulfide. DMS is first perceived in aroma at around 30 ppb, and the other compounds at considerably lower concentrations. These compounds are undesirable in beer in high amounts.

CAUSES: Wort bacteria (Obesumbacterium or Hafnia) is a major cause, especially of DMS. Coliform bacteria strains can also give a strong cooked-vegetable note. Additionally, these compounds can be formed during the kilning of green malt and during mashing. DMS is also formed by the yeast in a normal fermentation, and during slow cooling of the wort by a non-microbiological chemical reaction.

HIGH LEVELS DUE TO PROCESS: Poor sanitation (primary cause); not boiling the wort for at least one hour; long cooling times (overnight) before pitching; underpitching; contaminated yeast (especially packet yeast and recovered sediment); high moisture malt; over-sparging with water below 160 degrees.

REDUCTION: Good sanitation; fresh yeast culture; good one hour or more rolling boil; quick wort cooling; high pitching rates; use of 2-row English malt; proper sparging.

EXAMPLES: Contaminated homebrew.


Is it drinkable?

 

[cozmocracker]

im in canberra and the ph of the water out of the tap is 7.

 

[cozmocracker]

thanks for the replies everyone. so it would seem its DMS, im guessing the cause was under pitching yeast which resulted in a slow start to fermentation, i ended up adding another packet of yeast a day or so later to kick start it. oh well we live and learn. the initial brew is undrinkable but the second one which i started using some of the yeast cake isnt to bad, could of been really nice but now its bearable, i know BribieG mentioned its ok to drink if your desperate but i would like confirmation of that, can i drink it????

 

[Bribie G]

If it's still drinkable why not try the ancient Pommy trick and add a dash of Bickfords yellow lime cordial and drink it really cold? It turns out a bit like Barefoot Radler (noooo I didn't buy one, the daughter in law had a carton in for Xmas. Honest )

 

[cozmocracker]

i was reading a thread on diacetyl and it was mentioned that running co2 through the beer might get rid of DMS??? is this true??? worth a shot i guess but how long would i do this for?

 

[floppinab]

i was reading a thread on diacetyl and it was mentioned that running co2 through the beer might get rid of DMS??? is this true??? worth a shot i guess but how long would i do this for?

It's one way that is worth trying if you have a kegging system available, regularly gas and burp your keg can help bubble off any sulphury compounds in solution. I'm guessing you're bottling only and that won't be an option.

Something maybe to try as I've had a number of sulphury lager issues like yours.. One of the commercial brewers at ....... the Wollongong brewery............ 5 Islands is it.....??????...... anyway you can search it up in the thread I posted, said he had run some sulphury beers through/in some copper and that seemed to help. So I threw a piece of cleaned and sanitised copper pipe in my secondary. 7 days later it had completely cleared. There's probably some chemistry in there somewhere but it worked like magic for me.

EDIT,
Also I think your problem is unlikely to be DMS given that you are kit brewing, and DMS would generally be present from certain methods and ingredients of All Grain Brewing. Given what you have described it is most likely Hydrogen Sulphide in the first brew, quite probably from underpitching, and although when you did the second brew you got a better result from having more yeast there was enough yeast stress from the first brew to create a bit of the eggy stuff as well.

After a quick look around the web there is this
http://www.purebeer.com/school/volsulph/ppframe.htm

Mentions the copper trick as an electrode. Having a look around you'll probably find some better info. than that.

 

[cozmocracker]

thanks floppinab,

i couldnt find any info on using or making a copper electrode, can anyone help? or should i try co2 first, will co2 work on Hydrogen Sulphide?

cheers cozmo

 

[muckanic]

I'd be inclined to finish all your lagering, then let the brew come to room temperature and rouse it twice a day for a couple of days. Most sulphides are fairly volatile and should vent off. I think that's the idea behind the CO2 recommendation as well. The idea with the copper is that the tarnish reacts with H2S at least (dunno about DMS) and converts the dissolved gas into a solid. So don't scrub the copper too much. OTOH, the brew's natural acidity could attack the tarnish first.