Rotten egg two days in

[back2it]

Hi,

I have 8 litres of pineapple started two days ago and I'm getting a really bad rotten egg smell.

I splashed racked it quite a few times and added 1/8 tsp of k-meta. The fruit is still in it.

Saveable or dump?

Also, what causes this?

Thanks

 

[winemaker81]

When yeast is stressed by not having sufficient nutrient, most strains will produce H2S. Which strain are you using? How much nutrient did you add? Whatever you added, it needs more.

You caught it early, it should be fine with treatment. Stir the living heck out of it again. It's going to reek while you do it -- move the fermenter to a well ventilated area and run a fan.


EDIT: I wrote a detailed post on how I've handled H2s:

https://wine.bkfazekas.com/handling-hydrogen-sulfide-in-wine/

 

[back2it]

Thanks Bryan

I sanitised a second bucket, took it to the garage, added 2 tsp of nutrient and poured about a dozen times (that's 1.2 in decimal) between the two buckets from a 1m height (that's 3' 3" for imperial) . Nice and bubbly.

I popped it back into my fermentation fridge and left the garage door open. I do hope it recovers as it tastes really nice.

I will read your post and digest

 

[Rice_Guy]

When caught early rotten egg is fixable.

If the H2S is extremely obvious I would plan on a copper treatment. The easy to control version is add Redulus (copper infused yeast). The less controlled way is when racking have one or two inches of copper tubing in the racking line.

If it isn’t too obvious the aeration should fix it.

Other, slow the fermentation by cooling it. ex float a frozen juice jug or water in a milk jug in it. Low nutrient is the classic cause so add more if you are above 1/3 sugar approx 1.045. Organic nitrogen is more gentle than DAP. Finally next time consider a low H2 S yeast as Avanti and other from Renaissance.