Sulfur smell in my wash

[wv_hillbilly]

Ok, this is only for my sacrificial run, but I'm still trying to figure it out. Very simple( maybe too simple) wash. 2 gal water, 2 lbs sugar, a one a day vitamin, and a tsp lemon juice. I heated up 1 gallon water, added and dissolved my 2 lbs sugar, then added another gallon of water. I added the vitamin and lemon juice and let it cool to 90 degrees before pitching the yeast. I put it in the basement ovetnight. It did get cold down there, maybe upper 50s or lower 60s. I brought it back up stairs this morning, wrapped a heated blanket around it, and its starting to bubble again. Bit it has a horrible sulfur smell. Would this be from the lemon juice, a cold ferment last night, or maybe a lack of nitrogen? Or could it be something else?

[ipee7ABV]

do you have well water?

[bellybuster]

what yeast did you use? Some produce allot of sulphur

[wv_hillbilly]

It was tap water. I used 7.5 grams of fleishmans active dry yeast.

[Jimbo]

Too cold ferment won't do that but too warm will. Stressed yeasts make hydrogen sulfide and dimethyl sulfide (DMS), usual issue is heat. 90 is too warm to pitch a beer yeast but prolly OK for bakers. If not a heat issue something else is pissing off your yeast.

[wv_hillbilly]

Too cold ferment won't do that but too warm will. Stressed yeasts make hydrogen sulfide and dimethyl sulfide (DMS), usual issue is heat. 90 is too warm to pitch a beer yeast but prolly OK for bakers. If not a heat issue something else is pissing off your yeast.

Should I move this outside away from everything? I don't want h2s in my house, I don't feel like dying today.

[Jimbo]

Haha no its OK. Harmless just stinks. It usually dissipates. Wash should be fine

[wv_hillbilly]

I wouldn't say its harmless, 800 ppm is lethal. As little as 100 ppmcan cause respritory problems.

[sambedded]

Ok, this is only for my sacrificial run, but I'm still trying to figure it out. Very simple( maybe too simple) wash. 2 gal water, 2 lbs sugar

Sulfur smell could appear due to lack of sugar. For 2 gal of water you need around 4 lbs of sugar. When yeast consume all sugar but there is not enough alcohol to go dormant they start eating protein from what they have around (dead yeast cells for example) producing sulfur compounds.

[wv_hillbilly]

2 albs should give me 7% abv, is that not enough, its just a sacrificial run. I just want to figure it out invade I run into this problem with a drinkable run.

[oliver90owner]

Hydrogen suphide is not poisionous if you can smell it. At higher concentrations one cannot smell it and it can be lethal in a very short time (2 mins?)

A plain sugar ferment won't, unless some nutrient is added. Well, OK it will do something, but is not going to do the job properly. I would think the yeast is stressed without nutrient, but not yet an expert on yeasts.

[wv_hillbilly]

Sulfur smell is now gone and its starting to smell like a wine, that was short lived.

[Jimbo]

yes, that smell disspates pretty quick. A day is faster than normal, but Im glad she's back on track so quick for ya. The challenge is figuring out what pissed off your yeast.

[wv_hillbilly]

I have no idea, all I did was add a little more heat. Its not going like crazy, hardly see any bubbles in it, but I doubt it would be done already, stalled maybe? Ithas a crazy alcohol smell to it though.

[wv_hillbilly]

The smell, to me has changed to a puke, or very acidic smell. Would this for sure be bacteria? Should I toss it out and start again? Or just let it go a few more days?

[blind drunk]

I had it once and, well, not worth the effort. Whatever it is, it's probably consuming the alcohol as well. At least that's what happened in my case. I remember being very frustrated while it was happening and I got very little return for all of my efforts to boot. Just my experience, mind you.

[wv_hillbilly]

Id hate throw any away, but it is for the sacrificial run, if air gave it some air and pitch some strong yeast could it fight it off?

[Jimbo]

puke smell is bad. you have an infection of the variety that isint worth anything but a pour down the drain and a good bit of bleach disinfecting of your stuffs.

[wv_hillbilly]

I went ahead and threw it out, went with a scaled down birdwatchers this time, fingers crossed that this one will work out.

[HookLine]

Lack of nitrogen in the nutrients can make it sulphur stinky.

Tablespoon or two of tomato paste should fix that.

[blakesduc]

I have a sugar wash going now 28 gallon water 75 lb sugar beays en going for 8 days really had a bad sulfur smell for five days and began to stall I amusing a distillers yeast with a 22% rate I added 8 oz of nutrient to start with when it started to stall I added another 8 oz I have removed about s gallon of wash and replaced with fresh well water and with tomato paste 16 oz seems to be going again trying to save but time will tell started with 1.20 way to high now down to 1.13 time will tell

[rad14701]

I have a sugar wash going now 28 gallon water 75 lb sugar beays en going for 8 days really had a bad sulfur smell for five days and began to stall I amusing a distillers yeast with a 22% rate I added 8 oz of nutrient to start with when it started to stall I added another 8 oz I have removed about s gallon of wash and replaced with fresh well water and with tomato paste 16 oz seems to be going again trying to save but time will tell started with 1.20 way to high now down to 1.13 time will tell

It sounds to me like you've overdosed the water with too much sugar and nutrients... Even 1.13 is high... You could have split that single wash into two containers and topped them with water to get down under 1.100... Avoid the turbo greed factor and keep you potential at or below 14%, and preferably 10% - 12% and you'll have better luck... Check out the Tried and True Recipe forum... Scrap the turbo yeast altogether...

I just had a Gerber Barley sugar wash finish to 14% and clear in 60 hours using Fleischmann's bakers yeast so why piss away money on turbo yeast, which already contains nutrients, and yeast nutrients...??? Even if it took an extra day or three the end results would be better...

[bellybuster]

Something wrong here. 75 lbs of sugar in 28 gallons is not 1.200. Reading your hydrometer wrong or maybe it has been dropped and dislodged the paper inside?

[rad14701]

Something wrong here. 75 lbs of sugar in 28 gallons is not 1.200. Reading your hydrometer wrong or maybe it has been dropped and dislodged the paper inside?

I couldn't figure that out either... I had to drop the water volume down to something like 16 gallons as I recall... With 28 gallons the SG = 1.122 or 18.9% ABV, according to the sugar wash calculator, which is still high...

[blakesduc]

I added some tomato paste to wash and few days later it was off and going stronger than when I first started the sulfur smell is gone have ordered new hydrometer should be here by end of week it has been going supper strong for past two days shows some signs of slowing but not to bad starting to get rid of the sweet taste and has a strong alcohol smell when sampled hope it is done by weekend and see what I got but if not we will wait it out and see if it will finish this year lol hope to have new hydrometer by Saturday and see what I have. Will drop sugar amount next time other smaller batches I have done usually are done by day five and I have a new designed still and want to see how it works . Picked good time to make a wash that is going to take a half a month to complete.

[blakesduc]

The yeast I am using is not a turbo it is Crosby and bakers daddy distillers yeast anyone ever used it been looking at red star bakers yeast a lot cheaper any comments .

[wv_hillbilly]

I use Fleishmans instant , 4 bucks for 2 lbs at sams club.

[blakesduc]

no off taste from bakers yeast I have been told it does and it doesn't guess it would not matter with a reflux still

[wv_hillbilly]

no off tast from bakers yeast I have it do and it doesn't would not this it would matter when using refux still

Try that again...

[blakesduc]

just heard you could get a bread taste from bakers yeast