Smelly Youngs Brew Buddy Bitter

[hootbah]

I'm not sure whether this should be in the brew days forum or this one. Let me explain.

My second brew ever, is the Youngs Brew Buddy Bitter that I originally received at Christmas.

I learnt a few things from my first brew (Nelsons Revenge):
* Have all the equipment you need clean and ready
* The four stages on the beer kit are very optimistic
* Do not use a fridge thermometer to check the temperature of the brew
* Patience is key

Anyway, back to brew number two.

A couple of days ago I embarked on my second brew.

For this I was using the Youngs Brew Buddy bitter kit together with Muntons Beerkit Enhancer.

With this brew I sanitised a fermenting bucket and a king keg.
In the king keg I measured out the water for the brew and added about 2.5 g of campden powder (According to the jar this is about one campden tablet).

After about 15 minutes or so I measure out about three litres of the water and boiled it as required by the kit,

In the fermenting bucket I added the beer enhancer and the softened/warmed contents of the beer kit can.

On top of this I added the boiling water and began to mix.

Once as mixed as it seemed possible I added the rest of the water and thoroughly mixed the batch.

The OG at this point was around 1.038. (I'm not sure if this is good as I have no idea what it should have been). The temperature was 21C.

After this I sprinkled the yeast from the kit on top of the mix and left it.

Fermentation began within an hour or so and the next morning a good amount of bubbles had formed on the top.

A good job I thought.

Things to learn at this stage:
* Trying to pour three litres of water out of a king keg is very difficult. It is time to get a second fermenting bucket with a tap.
* Pouring the other water out of the king keg is also very difficult.

The next night when I arrived home from work there was a smell in the house. Initially I thought it was something the cat had done. I was wrong. The smell was coming from the beer. I kind of beer fart smell. Not very sulphurous, but smelly. After reading these forums I think that this is okay and will dissipate over time.

My questions are
* Is this a normal smell?
* Is it due to too much campden powder?
* How long will it last? (I hope not ten days! Otherwise I may become single)

[hootbah]

Thanks for the information DaaB.

The worst of the smell should go reasonably quickly, it probably wont always occur, i've only ever experienced it the once.

I'm hoping it goes soon. It's been three days so far and it still smells. Maybe when I get home tonight the air will be clean and free from the odour.

...possibly, i'm pretty sure 1/2 a tablet is less than 2.5g but it shoudln't hurt. In the words of the Craftbrewers association, Any
residual sulphur dioxide acts as a harmless bacteriostat excess being made in reference to adding 1/2 a tablet, too much could harm the yeast. Regarding the smells, some yeasts do produce some interesting odours anyway. Other times they don't.

I'll make a note to only use 1/2 a tablet (around 1.25g or 2.5ml spoon) in future.

A second fermenter with tap is useful but you can use your regular fermenter, just fill it with your water and treat then using a sanitised jug (unside and out) scoop the water out you require, mix the extract and any sugar and boiling water in a spotlessly clean sauce pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins before adding to the fermenter. Any freshly opened bags of spray malt can go directly into the cool wort in the fermenter as it dissolves better in cold water.

This sounds like a very good idea. Its not easy moving 40 pints of water around.

Does this mean that it is okay to boil the extract from the brew kit cans? I'd not read that anywhere. If its okay I'll try this for my next brew.

[hootbah]

On Friday, when I got home the smell of the beer had dissipated and my kitchen was a safe place to enter. There is still a bit of a smell if you lift the lid on the fermenter. I guess this will also clear in the next few days.

Lets hope this is the only time I get to experience this perfumery of brewing.

[stevezx7r]

I once did a lager using lager yeast. The smells it generated were realy bad, sulpherous to the point of making me gag. I was pleased it was outside.

[hootbah]

An update on the outcome of this brew.

It has been in my King Keg for a week or so now and is dropping clear. I have tasted one or four pints and the beer does not have any bad/strange/sulfurous smells or tastes.

I think the beer enhancer has added something to the beer as it tastes to me a lot better than expected from such cheap ingredients.

I will know in future that a bad smell is not always a bad thing. Thanks for all the advice. In my next brew I reduced the amount of Campden powder and so far I have no bad smells (the new brew is using a different yeast which was thought to be the problem).