First dud batch? What does failure smell like? Sulfer?

[otherchuck]

Greetings all!

I used to brew ale in the 90's, but since I became a beekeeper 15 years ago, I have only brewed mead. I cannot believe I am the greatest ever mead brewer, so maybe I am the luckiest, but every batch I have made has been great, and I have not ever had a failure...until perhaps now.

I know y'all like us to post recipes so here it goes:

Five gallon batch; 15 lbs honey; two packs Lalvin K1-V116 yeast (rehydrated as a starter with GoFerm); staggered nutrient addition schedule with Fermaid K and DAP; degas and aerate for first few days, then just degas for a couple more days; fermentation at a stable 68 degrees farenheit

Everything about the brew process went perfect, and I had a vigorous ferment (as judged by airlock activity) within 12 hrs and for first several days. Everything seemed like it always does. But I did think I noticed the ferment quit a little early, and sure enough it stalled at 1.010, when usually after a couple weeks it is under 1.000. Hmmm...one thing I thought could have been a problem was that the nature of the honey I used; as beekeepers, most of our honey is normal amber, but when we get late season honey harvests, the honey is a delicious dark brown and thick, like molasses. For this batch, two-thirds of the honey was of the uber-dark variety, and one-third was amber. I have no insight into the chemistry of all this, but I did wonder if that was why the ferment stalled a little early.

Anyway, when I racked to the secondary tonight, something was wrong. There was a 'sulfer' smell to the must, and it didn't taste quite right; hard to describe the flavor, but again "sulfer" comes to mind.

So what does that indicate? Hydrogen sulfide? I don't know what "fusel oils" or "esters" smell like, but are those the culprits? I will rack from the secondary to the tertiary in some amount of time, and check the flavor then, but there is a possibility that this whole batch will go down the sink if I detect any shadow of the funk I detected when I racked today.

Very sad about this of course. Sometimes when I have seen people ask about "off-flavors" in this forum, I think people have suggested just letting the mead age for as long as necessary until the off-flavors disappear. Is it the case that a lengthy aging period will cause the sulfer funk to disappear, or do we think this batch is bound for the sink? I'll wait it out if there is value in that, but, sadly, this might be my last batch of mead; even tho I have had a very successful run as a mead-brewer, there is too much work involved in this hobby for me to be philosophic about throwing 5 gallons down the sink.

Thanks!

Otherchuck

 

[EricHartman]

Definitely value in waiting! The yeasts are doing continuous busy work in there even when they aren't making nice visual bubbles for us. Certainly could give a thorough, agressive, stirring to try to get some of the sulfur smells to degass. Through the podcasts I've heard of splash racking; which is essentially as a turbulent a rack/pour as you can make it to displace the sulfur based gasses. I've also heard of placing a short piece of copper pipe in the must until for a period of time. I personally would allow some months to pass before I threatened oxidizing with a splash rack or using any copper to pull sulfur out. Any fruit added to the must or is this a traditional?

A quick search on splash rack will uncover quite a few threads.

 

[Squatchy]

So I would have stirred out the sulfur smells as soon as I first got a whiff of it. It can bind over time and you will never get it out. It's not very vulnerable to oxidation early on like this as there is lots of other gas in suspension that needs to come out anyway for it to start to clear up. If aggressive motion somehow doesn't do it. Then use the copper pipe. But only if it is no longer still fermenting. Eric. You did good brother. Except for not knowing it will bind and become permeate if it's allowed to stay for too long.

 

[EricHartman]

So I would have stirred out the sulfur smells as soon as I first got a whiff of it. It can bind over time and you will never get it out. It's not very vulnerable to oxidation early on like this as there is lots of other gas in suspension that needs to come out anyway for it to start to clear up. If aggressive motion somehow doesn't do it. Then use the copper pipe. But only if it is no longer still fermenting. Eric. You did good brother. Except for not knowing it will bind and become permeate if it's allowed to stay for too long.

There's always more to learn and I'm ever eager to hoover down more knowledge... Thanks for the course correction!

 

[Squatchy]

There's always more to learn and I'm ever eager to hoover down more knowledge... Thanks for the course correction!

Thanks for all of your contributions here my friend

 

[Dave Osbourne]

Thanks for the thread, as my first sulfur smelling mead as well happened 12 hours after pitch. I pitched 2x yeast, it ran to 76 F for D47, and fiber cap developed (apples, pears). Feeding it with SNA Ferm-X products on a 1,2,3,7 day and/or 1/3rd nutrient schedule. Muslin bagged the cap/materials to see about that helping with cap avoidance. Will stir down cap and aerate for 2 days vigorously as well. We'll see where this goes

 

[Squatchy]

That particular strain is super fussy and throughs tone of fusel alcohols once it goes over 66F. With cap issues and not speak of temp management. I suspect this is probably not even drinkable at this point. You haven't been back once, that I can tell. What's up with this stuff? What did you learn?

 

[4give]

@Squatchy, I think Dave Osbourne is different than the OP, so I'm guessing he has a different batch that this just happened to recently.

@Dave Osbourne, others here can correct me if what I've done (even within the last week) shouldn't be done, but I think another option that is similar to aggressive stirring is actually transferring the entire biomass into another fermentation vessel if you have the gear to do so. I even place the end of the tube in the receiving vessel next to the vessel wall so that the must will sort of fan out as it transfers. I'm not sure what's going on in my home right now - maybe it's just my nose - but I have a high ABV experiment going and 2 Chard pyments going (one with D47 that has been between 62-65F the entire ferment). I thought I caught slight whiffs of sulfur in all 3 of them. It was weird because it wasn't overwhelming, and seemed to come and go as I was trying to gently sniff without getting the gas headache when you sniff to hard - LOL. I stirred a lot with a drill stirrer 2x that day, then racked them the next day. All seems OK right now.

Read up on the yeast you think you want to use instead of just picking any yeast that others have used. Temperature matters, and there are ways to manage it some without the equipment. You may also have a better chance of matching the yeast to your honey based on that nuances the yeast can impart from the fermentation.

Another related question came to mind recently as I remembered something about the adjunct Noblesse by Scott's Labs. Coincidentally, I also racked onto a small does of Noblesse on the batches above. The instructions state to add this at the beginning of ferment, BUT there's this:
"Noblesse is also the best inactivated yeast product at adsorbing ochratoxin, copper residues and off-sulfur compounds! Use it where you normally use yeast hulls during an active fermentation."
I'm thinking this may be another adjunct to have on hand to help any smelly batches (if I'm reading this right). What do y'all think?

 

[Jackie B]

if I am using a yeast prone to this I will use noblesse in the beginning. They have another product Reduless that is used when the problem occurs. I haven't used it in a couple years but I keep some on the shelf.

 

[4give]

Jackie B, thx , and yes, Noblesse is typically used in the beginning, but it can be used during fermentation as well. I was doing a bit more research on this to confirm (at least in theory), and it indeed appears to be a good option. I did also see Reduless, and plan to get some, like you, just in case. i guess for more extreme scenarios, there's also Kupzit.

I also wanted to be a bit more specific in my recent potential sulfide issues. They were all post 1/3rd sugar break in fermentation, so past any nutrient additions. This is important, to me, because sometimes the H2S or other sulfide smells can be due to not enough nutrients and just might be corrected by upping nutrient additions if before the 1/3 break. In my recent experience, the racking and/or Noblesse seemed to do away with any off smells. All 3 batches seem to be just fine right now.