beer smells like nail polish

[brian_beer]

Hi all,

I think my beer is broken

I made a nut brown ale 2 weeks ago, with some pecan and hazelnuts in the mash. Started at 1065 and after a week had stopped at 1020. I tasted the sample and it was nice, with a hugely nutty finish.

I'd used wyeast 1968 and it says to do a thorough diacetyl rest so i took it up from 18 to 21C for a couple of days, still within the 18-22 range for that yeast.

I then brought it down to 4C for a couple of days to drop out the crud. Went to bottle today and it is still 1020, but has lost all nut taste and smells like nail polish.

Looking around, it seems it could be an infection....is it drain cleaner now? I know that fermenting too warm can give this smell, but unless it was the diacetyl rest, I don't see how I was near the top of the range.

I'm tempted to just bottle it anyway and hope it clears but it's a lot of effort if it's just going to get worse.

What do people think?

[gnutz2]

Bottle it.

You cant go on what it tastes like post fermentation.

[alix101]

I wouldn't of thought it was a cause from the diacetyl rest, unless you had raised the temperature to high before the krausen had died down.
The cause is probably a wild yeast infection, although it can be caused by over oxygenated wort, or not using food grade plastic..

[greenxpaddy]

Strong sweet beers can be rather overpowering in flavour terms. Its easily done. Don't think its an infection. It should age out IMO

[Beer O'Clock]

I agree with Paddy. People are too ready to dismiss beer as infected. Often on styles that they have never done before.

It's all too easy to blame an infection rather looking elsewhere.

[Steveicky]

I had a beer recently that due to some poor calculations on mash efficiency and final volumes ended up way over 1060. Initially you could really taste the alcohol, nail polish style. After 8 weeks it was a different beer.

Bottle it and leave it to age.

Steveicky

[captain wassname]

Cant you keg it?

Jim

[Capn Ahab]

If it smells powerfully of nail polish, to the point where it gives you a small, but heavy glue-like head buzz, then you've got higher alcohols in there, most likely ethyl acetate or acetone. Higher alcohols never mellow out with age, they ruin your beer and give you a hangover from hell if you are stupid enough to drink a bottle of it.

AFAIK they are only caused by stressed yeast, rather than infection, so could be pitching rate, fermentation temp, or even that the yeast mutated if it was reused from another brew.

Obviously it is impossible to give accurate advice without smelling the beer, so it could be that you're mistaking high fruitiness for nail polish, but imo you have named quite a distinctive smell (solventy), so unfortunately it's likely that the beer is f*cked. Commiserations, I know how you feel...

[bob3000]

I had a weissenbock turn out really solventy, made it in april. Now many months later if i chill it down really cold I just about don't notice it.

Good luck! but don't expect too much IMO.

[brian_beer]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Seems like there's a possbility that it won't be horrid, so I'll not ditch it just yet.

I'll bottle a dozen or so just in case it turns magical and I have recently bought some of those bag in a box things for a different beer so I'll stick the rest in there and see what happens.

I'm sure I get solvents, rather than a lot of fruit but not enough that I think I'm glue-sniffing. Couldn't rule out my nose being useless though.

Since I don't have any evidence for an infection (nothing visibly wrong with it, gravity isn't flying down), I'm thinking it would be yeast stress - I know that I underpitched so that is a definite possibility.

I'll give it a shot and see how we go. Time will tell

thanks again

[Capped]

AFAIK they are only caused by stressed yeast, rather than infection, so could be pitching rate, fermentation temp, or even that the yeast mutated if it was reused from another brew.

Capn, I'm assuming that you mean fermenting at too high a temp causes these higher alcohols? I ask because I did two brews over the summer where the ambient temp did stay around 26C for the duration. The beer ( which I bottled and am now coming to the end of) turned out 'alright' but drinks more like a super-strength lager than the 4% PA that they are. I can't detect any nail polish-type smells,just that it seems,and tastes much stronger than it is (or was intended).

[Capn Ahab]

AFAIK they are only caused by stressed yeast, rather than infection, so could be pitching rate, fermentation temp, or even that the yeast mutated if it was reused from another brew.

Capn, I'm assuming that you mean fermenting at too high a temp causes these higher alcohols? I ask because I did two brews over the summer where the ambient temp did stay around 26C for the duration. The beer ( which I bottled and am now coming to the end of) turned out 'alright' but drinks more like a super-strength lager than the 4% PA that they are. I can't detect any nail polish-type smells,just that it seems,and tastes much stronger than it is (or was intended).

Yeah, I reckon generally a too high fermentation temp will stress the yeast and can produce fusels and other higher alcohols, but then again it is entirely dependent on the yeast; I made a saison earlier in the summer with wlp566 and pushed the temp up to 35 C by the end of the ferment. I would hesitate to do this right at the start though, as I think it's probably best to let the yeast get going under fairly normal conditions before you start messing with it. Some yeasts are really good at tolerating high temps and some others aren't.

Don't forget it could also be a combination of the factors I mentioned above. The OP doesn't say, but I think it may be to do with reusing yeast. A mate of mine repitched a low gravity beer on a yeast cake that had fermented a high gravity beer, and the yeast had mutated into a phenolic solventy nightmare. I have had a similar experience, and would only reuse healthy yeast from a low to med gravity beer.

[Capped]

OK thanks Capn - I'll put my odd results down to temp as otherwise my procedure was same as always,and I used new packs of Notty in both brews. No such trouble now; the temp under my stairs where the FV lives is hovering around a constant 17/18C!

[brian_beer]

Righty, I left it chilling for another day and then bottled yesterday and the solventy smell had died down a lot, so I'm already feeling a little better about it. Still a bit odd, but I'll see how it goes - I still wouldn't consider drinking it with the current smell

For reference, it was a liquid yeast smackpack I had used but I did work out (via another thread) that I had underpitched because my gravity was high and I'd forgotten wyeast was american (so my gallons were too big).

[greenxpaddy]

Makes sense then with a stressed yeast