Help with current brew. I think it's knackered...

[Gggsss]

Hi all

I stuck a kit brew on 48 hours (Thurs afternoon) ago and I think it's f*****.
I'm on to BIAB now but put a Wilko kit brew (23L) on to run a couple of experiments (using tap water and Campden tablets and an alteration of my FV). There has been no sign of airlock activity and it is starting to smell off (sulfur/eggy) . I have just opened the lid and there is a fair krausen so something has been happening.

It was a basic IPA kit. Instead of the 1kg of brewing sugar I added 505g of DME, 425g of dextrose and 50g of table sugar. Came out as 1.035 so just a couple of points short of expected. Instead of the 6g of kit yeast provided I used a full 11g pack of the Wilko English Ale Gervin yeast. Set it at 20c in my chamber/fridge.

I followed my usual cleaning and sanitizing regime. Boiled the sugars to dissolve sanitize.

The only thing I done differently was the Campden tablet used to de-chlorinate the water. I always use Tesco Ashbrook, but this time I used 23L of tap water with 1 Campden tablet (crushed and dissolved).

I can't think why this batch has gone wrong, considering it is the most uncomplicated way of brewing. I have around 15 brews under my belt and have never encountered such issues.

What should I do? Sling it?

A million thanks in advance....

 

[foxbat]

Plastic buckets are far from airtight. You have a krausen and therefore you have fermentation. Take a gravity reading after a week or so if you're worried.

 

[Gggsss]

Thanks for the reply. Was worried about that until the smell hit me. Now I'm more concerned about that.

 

[Nicks90]

Some beers smell during fermentation something orrible!
Although can't say I've ever noticed sulphury notes from English ale yeast before. It'll be fine. It wants to be beer, so it will be beer. Patience.....

 

[Clint]

I recon it was the 50g of sugar that did it...

 

[Rodcx500z]

Those smells you normally get with lager, as above let it go and test taste in a week

 

[MmmBeer]

Campden tablets are sodium metabisulphite, which can release sulphur compoiunds (SO2, H2S etc), which is possibly what you are smelling. How much did you use and how long before did you leave it before sealing the fermenter?

For a kit beer, there is no need to use Campden, or bottled water; if your tap water is good enough to drink, it is good enough to make a kit beer with. For all grain brewing, 1/2 a tablet dissolved in 35 litres of water will help remove chlorine from the water. It is best left for a while to do its stuff, but lets face it, most of us probably chuck it in and start heating striaght away. Also be careful how much you add; I ruined 3 or 4 batches, by adding 1/2 a tablet with the mash water and 1/2 with the sparge. The beer had an odd sulphurous taste that didn't seem to match any of the common off flavours and even a professional head brewer couldn't identify.

 

[Clint]

I always split a tab between mash and sparge...except for the bits that go everywhere when I crush it! Got no off flavours.

 

[moto748]

Seems to be that years ago people would throw their hands up in horror at the idea of adding 'sulphite' (as it was referred to) to home-brew beer.
Nowadays people seem to add it as a matter of course.

Shoot me now, but my attitude is, if my tap-water doesn't smell/taste of chlorine, then it''s fine as it is. I realise tap-water varies a lot in quality. I have never used Campden tablets (except years ago, to sterilise bottles) and I don't believe I have ever suffered from it.

 

[Galena]

Shoot me now, but my attitude is, if my tap-water doesn't smell/taste of chlorine, then it''s fine as it is.

Not shooting you at all, but I tend to think if you can improve your beer significantly with little but controlled additions to your water, then I can't see much reason why I wouldn't do it.

 

[Gggsss]

Thanks all.

I used 1 tablet for 23l. And left it for around an hour before using it.

 

[moto748]

Not shooting you at all, but I tend to think if you can improve your beer significantly with little but controlled additions to your water, then I can't see much reason why I wouldn't do it.

I do generally add a little calcium chloride and gypsum, and sometimes a little acid, but not Campden tablets.

One of these days I'll do two identical brews in a row, and leave the chloride and gypsum out of one, and see if I can taste any difference!

 

[MmmBeer]

I do generally add a little calcium chloride and gypsum, and sometimes a little acid, but not Campden tablets.

One of these days I'll do two identical brews in a row, and leave the chloride and gypsum out of one, and see if I can taste any difference!

I stil use them for winemaking, but no longer for brewing.

If you have high levels of chlorine in your water then they can be useful, but otherwise they can do far more damage than improvement.

 

[Galena]

One of these days I'll do two identical brews in a row, and leave the chloride and gypsum out of one, and see if I can taste any difference!

I always mean to do that, in particular the campden tablet but the brewday comes round and I think I just might as well add it.

 

[Galena]

but otherwise they can do far more damage than improvement.

Really? How so?

 

[MmmBeer]

You can make a very drinkable beer with no campden, adding a little will improve it slightly, adding too much can make it undrinkable.

I think of it like adding chillies to a sauce, with none, its a bit bland, with one its better, with two its spot on, but with three its ruined.

 

[Galena]

You can make a very drinkable beer with no campden

Unless chlorine or chloramine are producing off flavors presumably?

adding too much can make it undrinkable.

But how much is too much, all the information I have read on the subject seems to indicate that one tablet in a 20 litre brew will have no ill affect, personally I always add half a tab.

 

[MmmBeer]

I'm only going from my own experience; I started using a half a campden tablet split between mash and sparge water, but then after several brews, I must have had a brain fart and convinced myself that it was half a tablet in the mash and another half in the sparge.

Long story short, I ended up with 3 or 4 batches that all had this strange sulphury flavour to them that I couldn't identify, but ruined the beer. After doing much research, I realised that I had been doubling up on the campden, stopped using them altogher and am very pleased with my beer.

 

[MmmBeer]

Unless chlorine or chloramine are producing off flavors presumably?

True, I have had a commercial beer with a chlorophenol off flavour, was like sucking on an elastolast.

But how much is too much, all the information I have read on the subject seems to indicate that one tablet in a 20 litre brew will have no ill affect, personally I always add half a tab.

Most sources e.g. wikipedia quote one tablet per 70 - 75 litres of source water, but this will vary on the chlorine concentration of your water. Here is a section of my suppliers water quality report.

The figure we need isn't the chloride, but the free chlorine (chloriamine isn't listed), the average result is 0.22mg/l, max is 0.48 mg/l (probably in the Summer, when bugs are more active). According to in Water by John Palmer & Colin Kaminski, the next book on my 'to read' list, 1.337mg of sodium metabisulphite is required to remove 1 mg of free chlorine, although it recommends a 20-30% safety factor. For ~ 35 litres of raw warter :-

1.337 x 0.48 x 35 x 1.3 = 2.92 mg of sodium metabisulphite is required. One campden tablet contains 0.44 g (440 mg)

Maybe I just have unusually low levels of chlorine in my water, but a whole tablet seems excessive.