Off Smells. Need to intervene?

[Déantóir]

My recipe:

4.5 litres of black tea
4.5 litres of water
3kgs of Rowse clear honey
2 grated bramley apples
A handful each of: raisins and cardamons
A few star anise
A bourbon vanilla pod
Wyeast 4184

I boiled the fruit and spices in the tea. Mixed the tea with the cold water in my fermenting vessel. Mixed through the honey. Left in the fruit and spices in a muslin cloth. Let it cool to lukewarm and pitched the yeast.

I aerated by stirring regularly for 3 days and added a quarter teaspoon of DAP each day. Then I sealed it tightly and it's been left for about a week.

I saw a few people mention in other threads that there wouldn't be any harm in opening the seal to have a smell so out of curiosity I opened it today. There's a slight rotten-eggs sort of smell. Is this something I should do something about or will it sort itself out with time?

My first post here. Thanks for any help =)

 

[fatbloke]

A good splash racking, aerate the hell out of it and 2 tsp of energiser/Fermaidk/tronozymol (the later most likely in the UK).......

Should do the trick......

 

[Déantóir]

Splash racking means intentionally aerating it while racking?

What could have caused this problem?

 

[Déantóir]

So from the reading I've been doing I get the impression that the smell is caused by the yeast not having enough nutrients or possibly from being kept too hot?

The only nutrient I have access to without ordering online is a mixture of diammonium phospate and ammonium sulphate. Is that appropriate at this stage?
Would adding more raisins be helpful?

 

[antonioh]

What about microwaved bread yeast ?

 

[Déantóir]

Is the microwaved bread yeast to provide dead yeast for the living yeast to eat?

 

[antonioh]

Yes.
Inactive yeasts are used as nutrients.

 

[fatbloke]

If you check my blog, there's a link I added recently. Its for a .pdf doc of an article from zymurgy magazine, that was written by Ken Schramm.

It explains the whys and wherefores of nutrition, including why some batches will get smelly.

FermaidO is better than boiled bread yeast, and while it provides less than half the DAP part, its organic so, like boiled bread yeast it nitrogen is assimilated later on in the ferment - unlike the K version.

But it does seem (from memory) that the article suggests its not lack of nitrogen, but a different part of energiser........thiamin ? Can't remember of the top of my head.......

And no, the ritchies/youngs (whichever it is) yeast nutrient is basically just a source of nitrogen hence a reasonable sub for pure DAP. Its tronozymol thats the easiest as it available in a lot of the home brew shops here....... plus its a "complete" nutrient so contains not only DAP but all the other essentials.....

 

[Déantóir]

Thanks for the help. I spent a long time swirling and stirring it and added in some boiled bread yeast (the only thing I could get without ordering online) and the smell seems to be gone. The rate of bubbling has also picked up a bit.

 

[fatbloke]

Thanks for the help. I spent a long time swirling and stirring it and added in some boiled bread yeast (the only thing I could get without ordering online) and the smell seems to be gone. The rate of bubbling has also picked up a bit.

Excellent.

I was thinking on the article I alluded too the biggest reason for the stink is lack of thiamine. So that'd explain why the boiled yeast works. It contains vit B1 which I believe is......thiamine. ....

Might have to do a bit of checking but I think that's the root.......