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Sulfur smell in new melomel

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Ghost99

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 5, 2015
56
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Hi folks,

I've put together a multiberry melomel in the last 24 hours consisting of the following:

(Everything very thoroughly scrubbed and sanitized with Star San)

-7lbs clover honey
-4lb mix of organic strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries and raspberries (frozen and thawed to room temperature)
-5 grams Lalvin 71b (rehydrated in a solution of 1.5 teaspoons goferms at 104 degrees)
-1 teaspoon go-ferm
-Filled to about 11 litres with spring water
OG: 1.100

Aerated about 3 times so far in last 24 hours. Lid put on fermenting bucket with no bung or airlock, but a loose paper towel put on the hole to keep dust out but let lots of oxygen in.

The stuff has been fermenting up a storm within about an hour of first aeration, with a thick foam about an inch thick. It smelled great for about the first 24 hours, but tonight has taken on a noticeable sulfur smell (definitely not strong enough to obliterate the smell of the fruit, but noticeable to be kinda off putting. Veering on the smell of rotten eggs).

Can anybody think of why this could be happening? I did feel like that was quite a lot of fruit for such a small batch, but live n' learn...hopefully we don't have to ditch this batch.

Thanks!
 
Needs nutrient. Give it some Fermaid-O, or DAP, and soon. Degas and aerate two or three times a day for a couple of days. I've made the mistake of thinking that berries would provide enough YAN to keep things going. I was wrong. Feed those beasties!
 
Yep! That has DAP in it, and you're early enough in your ferment that the yeast can uptake it. Go forth and feed thy yeast!
 
Oh yeah, they need food. How much to add, I'm not sure since I've got not a lot of experience with melomels. FWIW the TOSNA protocol recommends half the target nutrient levels when fermenting with fruit. Since the yeast are stressed maybe giving the full dose of Fermaid-K is in order.

Hopefully the sulfur smell goes away, but if it doesn't there are a few options. The easiest is to clean and sanitize a piece of copper (pipe, a kitchen scrubby, etc) and put it in your carboy. It'll take a few weeks for the reaction between the sulfur and the copper to fully clear out the smell, but it's a super easy.

The fast option is to use a product called Reduless, which is yeast hulls complexed with copper molecules. You add it after the fermentation is complete, wait 3 days, and rack off the lees. I forget the dose off the top of my head.

I've used both methods in the early days of my meadmaking, and they work equally well. Reduless is available at my LHBS and is only a couple of bucks, but it doesn't work so well as to recommend it over a piece of copper.

Hopefully with the nutrients the smell goes away and you don't need to resort to either of these methods!
 
@zpeckler - Never heard of the Reduless! I'll have to check that out!

@ghost99 - I have used the copper trick, and can testify it worked well. Only took a week, as well, so check on it periodically if you have to use this method. But definitely try feeding and degassing like described first. Hopefully that will get your yeast happy again, and avoid any "extreme" measures.
 
Last edited:
Mazer828 said:
@zpeckler - Never heard of the Reduless! I'll have to check that out!

@ghost99 - I have used the copper trick, and can testify it worked well. Only took a week, as well, so check on it periodically if you have to use this method. But definitely try feeding and degassing like described first. Hopefully that will get your yeast happy again, and avoid any "extreme" measures.
Click to expand...
MoreBeer sells it, and they have dosing info.

When using solid copper, I prefer a copper kitchen scrubby over a piece of pipe because the surface area is larger. More surface area = quicker clearing of H2S.
 
Thanks for all the great tips folks! I stirred in 1.5 teaspoons of Fermaid K last night (and aerated it vigorously). By this morning the smell was back to delicious fruit and honey-no sign of rotten eggs at all! I had been planning on step feeding anyway, so should I proceed to do so at the various sugar breaks, or jump the gun and add more nutrients if I experience more stinkiness? Also, should I hold off on the copper scrubby given that the smell has improved?

Thanks again!
 
The good news is the copper trick will work no matter when you do it. So my inclination would be to wait. Take good care of your yeast, and let it purge the H2S on its own, which it will. Then at the end, if there's any hint remaining of the sulphur aroma or flavor, use the copper to "scrub" it out. I always try to use a natural method before an artificial one. And in this case, keeping the yeast happy is the natural, and using the copper is artificial. By what rule? My own whim. But that's what I do. If everything is back to smelling magical, you're probably back on the road to success. One note, though, your Fermaid-K contains DAP which is less and less assimilable by the yeast as the ABV rises, until after about 9% it's said the yeast cannot uptake DAP at all. And it will leave a flavor taint in your mead. So as your ferment progresses, you would be wise to transition to organic nutrients. Fermaid-O or boiled bread yeast.
 
Howdy guys,

update on this one: The melomel has fermented down to about 1.010 so things are progressing great. I step fed it and it's been capped and airlocked for about about a week. I noticed it was starting to smell just faintly of sulphur again. Not as bad as the first time, but still noticeable. Would it be too late to add the boiled bread yeast? Or would the sanitized copper scrubby be the way to go at this point?

Thanks!
 
Don't use the copper until fermentation is finished. Copper additions to an active fermentation will stimulate the yeast to produce more H2S. I'm not sure if the same is true about reduless since the copper is bound, so someone might want to test that. I would prefer to use a product like this rather than a scrub pad because this way you can be certain the residual copper (which has potential toxicity) in the mead will be minimized.
 
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