Sulphur smell...time to panic?

[NorCal]

I have two 30 gallon barrels that had the wine removed for three months. The barrels were let out to dry, bung side down for 3-4 days in high heat, so I'm confident they were dry. I did a half of a sulfur stick on each, once after dry then 5-6 weeks later. I used a pipe to channel the smoke into the barrel, as I didn't want to take a chance of ashes going in the barrel. Two days before I put the new wine in the barrel I filled them up with water and rinsed them out. Turned them bung down and let them dry out for a day.

The day I filled them with the new wine, I could smell the sulfur coming out of the bung hole as I was filling them. That was 2,3 weeks ago. They are undergoing mlf now, but popped them open and they both have a sulfur odor, one stronger than the other. The topping wine in a carboy does not.

Will this blow off? Should I treat it like H2S and immediately splash rack and clean the barrel out?

Thank you in advance.

 

[sour_grapes]

I won't be able to shed any light on your answer, but it may help others more knowledgeable than I if you could describe what king of sulfur smell. Is it like rotten eggs or like a burnt match or like k-meta? (I am guessing burnt match, but want to make sure.)

 

[ibglowin]

Have never had this problem as I have small barrels and keep them full 365. I would take the wine out, try a good rinse/cleaning with a basic substance like a percarbonate. Hopefully that would neutralize it.

 

[4score]

I smelled his barrel. I want to say rotten egg, but then again it could be a sulfur smell. If I had both smells in front of me I could tell them apart, but just one confuses my nose. My son is much better in accurately pin-pointing the smell and I'll ask him to give it a whiff tomorrow.

 

[stickman]

Are the barrels fairly new or neutral? With larger volumes of wine and especially if they are tannic, they can throw some H2S even after being racked and put to barrel. There may be more lees piling up than expected, it may help to drop the lees load by racking again if necessary. If the wine is still going through ML, preferably not more than half way through ML, you might consider stirring and waiting 24hrs and then rack, rinse the barrel with water and put the wine back in. I wouldn't normally splash rack at this point, just taking it out and putting it back into the barrel is enough movement.

 

[NorCal]

Both are second year barrels. Ok, went out to the garage, opened the bung, stuck my nose down as far as it could go, gave it a nice big inhale and I smell sulfur and not rotten eggs. 4Score and his wonder boy will be here tomorrow and I'll see if they get the same. If it is just a strong sulfur smell, it sounds like a good racking should suffice?

 

[NorCal]

I decided to take action. I racked the barrel, splashed racked the wine thoroughly and then power washed the inside of the barrel, long enough to be water shamed by my neighbors (it's a California thing).

Had the smell of sulfur as I was racking. Not real strong and really can't say rotten eggs smell, just like it did after I used the sulfur stick on the barrel. As the splash racked wine was sitting in the 44 gallon Brute, I took a real good close up smell. I didn't smell anything but nice wine.

6 hours later I pulled the bung and stuck my nose in the barrel. One barrel has little to no smell, the other still has some, I'd say less than 25%, but still there....arg.

A burning sulfur stick has a very strong sulfur odor. My barrel that was given the sulfur stick also has a very strong sulfur smell, but I suspect that this is suppose to subside over time. I'm just wondering if this is something that will dissipate or is there something funky going on, that requires more action.

 

[NorCal]

Recounting what I did to the barrel, while it sat idle for 10-12 weeks, it looks on two occasions I used 2-3X the amount of sulfur stick on the barrel than I was suppose to.

It calls for 1/3 to 1/2 a stick for a 60 gallon barrel. I used 1/2 stick for a 30 gallon barrel.

So the question remains, is there a chance this sulfur odor dissipate? Could it be creating other spoilage issues with the wine?

 

[stickman]

NorCal, just wondering how it's going. My experience with burning sulfur in barrels is based on using sulfur disks, I've never used the sticks before, though I wouldn't think it would make much difference. The barrel always smelled like burned sulfur before cleaning. Most of the time when getting ready to fill the barrel with wine, I would first fill with citric acid sulfite solution (20 to 30gm dry sulfite powder and 90gm citric in 30 gallon barrel) and allow to soak for several days, maybe longer depending on what I was doing at the time. I wasn't following any kind of procedure, not sure if it was right or wrong, it was just something I did to ensure the barrel was hydrated and water tight. After draining and rinsing with water I don't recall smelling sulfur at that point, but that was several years ago, and I have since switched to flex tanks and use new wood on each batch. There is something to be said for keeping barrels full of wine, but I was always too anxious to get the wine bottled, so mine were usually empty for a few months also.

 

[NorCal]

Hey Stick, thanks for the follow up. I'm feeling better about them, but haven't popped open the bung since racking. I had a great conversation with a tech rep from the barrel distributor. He felt that I over smoked them and the way I did it caused all the smoke to be highly concentrated at the bung hole and as a result there was some residual smell. He said to leave it alone and it should dissipate.