fermentation a little stinky

[kristie8888]

I am starting to suspect that I have excess hydrogen sulfide. But I don't know for sure because this is my first batch of wine.


There is a stinky fart smell mixed with the fresh sparkling bubble smell. The wine is at its peak during primary fermentation and is bubbling like crazy. The recipe is a simple 1 gallon concord concentrate wine that I got off of jack keller website. I put 1/8 tsp sulfites 10 hours before adding the pectic enzyme like I was supposed to. Should I add more to stop the stinkyness or just wait it out?

 

[MedPretzel]

I'd wait it out.


Congratulations on starting a fun hobby, and welcome to the forum!


Martina

 

[grapeman]

Masta can help you out with the particulars of sulfites. It depends on your source, type and so on. Did you use a campden tablet or K-Meta, Na-Meta or something else. Usually you add about 1/4 tsp of K-Meta per 6 gallon batch, so 1/8 tsp would be about 3 times that. That is probably the source of the smell and will probably dissipate with a little time. Wines are pretty forgiving and mistakes can usually be fixed with time.

 

[masta]

Hopefully you don't have a hydrogen sulphide issue which is a by-product of troubled yeast metabolism but I would bet everything is ok. Some yeast producea small amount of H2S during fermentation so don't get too concerned as of yet.
1/8 tsp of metabisulfite should yield ~100-125 ppm of free sulfite in 1 gal of must which is a bit high to start but certainly will be reduced with some good stirring and racking later on in the process.


Smells from fermentation can be quite strong, especially to someone just starting out so relax and let the yeast do its work. Even you do have a H2S problem it can be corrected most times.

Let me take a guess at which yeast you used: Red Star Montrachet ?

 

[kristie8888]

masta
you are good. It is Montrachet and my instincts told me that I should be using 1/16 tsp of powder K meta in one gallon but the instructions on the bottle and another person told me to use 1/8 per gallon so I figured Ishould trust themore experienced.


Thank you all. I feel much better.


Oh, and if the current SG is at 1.046 and stinky, should I leave it in the fermenting bucket so it can be exposed to oxygen more easily? Edited by: kristie8888

 

[masta]

You want to leave it in the primary until the SG reaches 1.010-1.020 and then transfer into a secondary container and put under an airlock and let the fermentation complete.


Do you have a link to the recipe you are using?

 

[kristie8888]

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques65.asp







the recipe doesn't call for sulfites and it says to skip the primary container all together.

 

[masta]

If you ever use White Grape juice from Welches make sure you don't add any extra sulfite since it has plenty already added to prevent browning of the product.


Using a container without an airlock would be considered a primary fermenter since the must is exposed to the air and more importantly oxygen.