This stuff stinks! ???

I am by no means a beginning wine maker, Although I have for the most part been a trial and error type guy as opposed to scientific when it comes to wine making. I have for decades read a great deal on the subject, and amassed quite a library of research material. started in the 60s and have never stopped. Even when I was in Vietnam I was rather infamous for my special K ration & MRE raisin jack which everyone referred to as the 14 day wonder juice. For decades I have enjoyed the fruity or flowery fragrance that was emitted from my many fermenting wines as I descended the steps into my winery. I currently have several different batches in varying stages of fermentation, but when I make a trip to the winery all I can smell is one batch of raspberry, and it stinks. No it is not sulfur small or a chemical smell. not the alcohol smell as when several batches mature at once. But a rotten smell, I mean like rotten meat. It is all I can stand to stir the must.
In just under 50 years of making wine I have never smelled this.
The berries were fresh from a friend who planted a new strain of raspberries because they are supper producers, the berries are big the size of quarters, and when eaten fresh taste great. I think he called them Latham raspberries? I froze them to break them down so as not to risk crushing seeds. and fermented as usual, with tannin, and setting acid to 3.4 and .55% with K1 V1116
using a good nutrient schedule and DAP at the 1/3 break. but they just Stink.

The nature of these barriers? something I misses?

Anyone experience anything like this? Or am I just in for a wait and see deal?

So.... in thirty some odd batches, I have had one that was horribly stinky at every turn. It was an Italian pinot bianco juice bucket. It started a little stinky and got much worse over the course of fermentation. I hit it with kmeta after fermentation, still stinky. I added robust portions of kmeta a couple of times. I also tried sorbate, to see if that would make any difference. Degassed, stirred, and then I gave it more time to settle and added more kmeta as a last resort. It never got better. I had to stop wasting my chemicals on something that wouldn't get better, so dumped it.

Maybe someone knows how to save yours.....

Heather

This sounds like Brett. The way to prevent this yeast from taking off is proper levels of SO2. It's often associated with higher PH wines,as well,especially if your SO2 level is not proper for the higher PH. It is often recommended to sulfite to .5 mol instead of the typical.8 mol that many winemakers use, if Brett is a possibility. SOME strains of Brett can add desireable flavors to wine, but other strains can be nasty.

Are you sure that nothing crawled inside your fermenter? Perhaps a mouse crawled in there and drowned?

Brett smells more like dirty socks (to me). If it smells like rotten meat, I would seriously consider dumping it.

Over the course of many years I have made many thousands of gallons of wine. In all that wine I have only had one small batch (a single 6 gallon carboy) take on a horrible nasty rotten smell (not rotten egg or dirty socks). It was a raspberry batch made with raspberries given to me by my sister and were frozen. They grew a lot of raspberries and one of the varieties was Latham which are almost as big as quarters. The batch as it fermented filled the room with a disgusting stench. I hoped it would improve as I fed it plenty of nutrients. I tried all the tricks of the trade and nothing seemed to help. I let the wine finish up and age for months in the carboy with ample rackings and kept it opped up and sulfited. Finally figuring it would never get better, I went ahead and bottled it. Bravely I would try a bottle ever 4 to 6 months for a few years. It never did improve so shortly after opening the bottles they would get dumped. Not sure if it was the same as yours or not, but it sounds like it might be the same problem. I see one thing in common here other than they were each raspberries, but specifically Latham raspberries. Good luck with it. Hope it turns out better than mine did. I haven't made raspberry wine since.

Brett CAN smell like rotten meat.

I am pretty sure It was not Brett, He has not been allowed here since he drank all my merlot.
And nothing got into the fermenter. It has had the lid on it loosely except when I stir.
I think grapeman may be on the right track her. I too have made thousands of gallons of wine. I have never had to dump a batch, so I find this very disappointing. The bummer is I still have about 30 pounds of those berries. but if it is them I certainly will not use them for wine.
I will none the less give it the old college try and see what I can do. thanks Guys.

Is there a way to test for the presence of Brett? I mean a way that a home winemaker can test?

What else could it be? I can't understand why you have doubt. There's no other wine fault that produces that aroma.

Yes, there is a test that can be done--and that might be a good idea if you suspect this problem.

Turock said:

What else could it be? I can't understand why you have doubt. There's no other wine fault that produces that aroma.

Click to expand...

Guess. I should have said I have an easy blue kit and have already run it. I have never had brett here before so the odds of contaminated equipment are nill. There are no fruit flies to be found here at this time of year. And I sulfated the must heavily prior to adding yeast. Since brettanomyces is very sensitive to sulfur dioxide I would have thought it would have eradicated any wild britt yeast from the must. At least that is what the material I have tells me. But it could be outdated Lord only knows how old it is.
The ferment is still running with a SG of 1.040 now but it still stinks. The ferment right next to it smell fine. and I m pretty sure I had stirred both batches with the same spoon prior to noticing the odor, Knowing that the brettanomyces yeast would have colonized the other must. I figured both would have developed an off smell. which is why I ran the easy blue test. had brett showed, I would have laid the potassium metabisulphite to the must even if it meant restarting the ferment afterward.

I have made several batches of wine from fresh rasberries. Domestic of no name known. All came out nice. Haveing picked plenty of wild berries I can say with great certenty that some years and some patches are simply loaded with fruit worms... Leave them sitting in the fridge or table for a few hours and watch the worms crawl out.... Maybe the smell of rotten meat is not so far off.
If this is the case I would juice and then sample the remaining berries. Do not ferment on the fruit. For the wine already going get the abv as high as you can get it. That kills off many bad flavors, or nose hairs
I currently have a mellon wine that smells rotten and has from day one. Lots of extra sulfa, nutriants, or splash racking have not helped. Next I am gonna restart fermentaion and try to kill off the smell with a high abv. ( This worked for me befor), differnt smell, but still nasty) It did stall out on me during our long cold winter. Now that temps are above 10 degrees more often then not I will try restarting it. If you can't get a high abv then add a spash or three of everclear and let age. Better then dumping it anyhow!


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Could you be smelling excessive HS2 from perhaps a stressed fermentation? Ie rotten eggs? Failing that, I would also say brett. I have intentionally fermented with brett before and some of the descriptors for it can include barnyard and horse-stall.

Check out some of the flavors listed on the flavor wheel.

https://heysmartbeerdude.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/brett-aroma-wheel.jpeg

Jensmith. I am fairly sure it is not insects, Before freezing Most berries, I place them in a Potassium metabisulphite bath. This aids in preservation which is not really necessary when freezing but more importantly like a salt water bath it drives any insects from the fruit. Now I suppose it is possible that a few hardy specimens may have remained, but I should think they would be inconsequential.

seth8530 said:

Could you be smelling excessive HS2 from perhaps a stressed fermentation? Ie rotten eggs? Failing that, I would also say brett. I have intentionally fermented with brett before and some of the descriptors for it can include barnyard and horse-stall.

Check out some of the flavors listed on the flavor wheel.

https://heysmartbeerdude.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/brett-aroma-wheel.jpeg

Click to expand...

Seath: The strong unpleasant odor lead me to suspect Brett early on, that is why I ran the Easy blue. It is the test for Brett., and it showed negative. The easy blue is not a cheep kit so I hesitate to run it indiscriminately. it is not the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulphide , and I followed a sound nutrient schedule. Now I am not sure if it is slightly diminishing or I am becoming accustom to it. but it seems to have taken on a sort of plastic fruit nuance.(for lack of a better description) The must is down to 1.030 and still active. so I am taking a wait and see approach now. I will post the outcome.

I would follow the wait and see as well... I would also reconsider your procedure of dipping your fruit in sulfite. Excess So2 can lead to cranky ferments.

As a rule bad smells come from lack of nutrients and other strange things, ive not looked back but will do shortly on other peoples posts, I tend to add some apple or grape juice to my ferments, not merely for the flavour, but, partly because, some fruits just don't have the trace nutrients needed for fermentation, I know its fairly routine to add some yeast nutrient etc, but there are trace elements and such like needed for fermentation, which may be lacking there, if its a pure fruit of one type or other, some thing or other that is required may be missing, without going into scientific detail, which is probably beyond amateur wine making scope and may need laboratory conditions, it might be worth trying to add either some grape or apple juice, as a rule u don't need much if its just to supply trace elements and it will very likely not be noticeable in the final product, but try adding about 250 mls of either grape or apple juice per gallon if yeast nutrient doesn't cure your problem.

The reason both the apple and grape industry dominate wine and similar is because they contain most of the essential things needed to ferment successfully, without a loboratory.

Excluding this some fruits such as peach can be a bit smelly wen fermenting, but end up being nice eventually, so, you may have to perciviere and if this batch ends up outstanding I hope you give us all some feedback eh ;-)

Most of the raspberries ive fermented where from concentrate containing either grape or apple and all of them turned out to be really nice wines as well. In fact raspberry wine is one I really enjoy ;-)

The Raspberry wine has been in a locked down primary with air lock attached, Activity in the lock is down to near nothing. So I figured I would take a SG. I opened the fermenter and took a good sniff, as I was not bowled over this time. It did not smell to badly. I extracted a sample with my wine thief, and placed it in a cylinder. The SG is down to 0.998. I figured I would rack into a carboy and give it some time, as I went to pour the sample back into the fermenter the cylinder kind of slipped and the sample just dumped Into the wine stirring it up. instantly the stink was back. This leads me to believe it is a gas in the wine as some have suggested.

Although it does not smell like hS2 I also know things are not always as they seem.

As soon as it settles again I will rack and se what some more time does.

My bet goes on hs2.... Too many people blame that on Bret... I do not believe Bret is as easy to get as everyone makes blame. Hs2..... Very easy!

Could it possibly be DMS? It sounds like it could be I would try reduless if it were me. DMS is another Volatile Sulfur Compound. But I would first treat by stirring the wine up really good to release some of that gas and splash rack after the ferment is completed then if no improvement I would resort to the reduless. Well just giving you some suggestions. Hope it works out for ya

I racked the Raspberry wine a few days ago. it did not smell to badly, however when I washed the lees down the drain it stunk just like the wine did when the ferment was real active. I placed an airlock on the wine and let it sit there was no activity in spite of the fact the SG was only down to 1.002, it has been sitting now for 4 days so I decided to take another SG reading, Still at 1.002 I can live with that as not the stink is completely gone, it smells like raspberry wine. I did not treat with anything. So the only conclusion I can come to, is that it is the berries, or some part of them that was causing the odor. skins pulp Don't ask me what but something. This better be a good drinker, or those Latham berries are headed for the dumpster.