H2S Help!

I did a 10 gallon sucrose wort that I plan on flavoring afterward to make wine coolers. Ive noticed that large volume sucrose washes fail because there isn't enough nutrients for the yeast to survive and reproduce properly so I used this stuff: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064H0MWY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 .

It seems to have worked fine except now my wash is full of Hydrogen Sulfide. I read online that you can get rid of H2S via racking and aeration. So racked one of my 5 gallon carboys into a 5 gallon stainless steel brew pot and used my degassing/aeration rod on it, the kind that you attack to a drill, in a well ventilated room. It seems to have helped but not solved the problem comletely. I also read online that you can get rid of it by introducing some copper to convert it back into elemental sulfur, and can then be racked or filtered out. Would it be safe/effective to simply rack it using a copper tube? I also read online that Hydrogen Sulfide is extremely poisoness. Is it likely that my fermentation could have produced it in high enough concentrations to poison me? Anyway what I plan on doing is continuing to rack and aerate the wort then rack it through the copper tube and filter it with activated carbon. Does anyone think this is a bad idea? Thanks much in advanced!!

Next time, use more of it. I assume your sucrose wash is just fermented sugar water? If so, you do not want to use the dose recommended for wine as wine will already have nutrients naturally occurring in the grape juice. You need a much stronger dose.

Also try adding some DAP.

One of the other members recently schooled me on this. If your ferment is over then nutrients aren't going to help. Racking through a copper tube is one method. There are others with copper wire, etc. The member here pointed me to a product called Reduless. Here: http://morewinemaking.com/products/reduless.html?site_id=5

I used it on my batch and it worked well.

Best,

CE

H2S is poisonous, but it is not "extremely poisonous" as you have stated. It isn't remotely likely you could have produced enough to hurt yourself in any way. (You would be absolutely overwhelmed by the smell at the levels that are dangerous. And then your sniffer would stop working.)

There is a concern with racking through copper, viz., wine is acidic enough to dissolve some copper. You will wind up getting a copper dose of unknown strength. Reduless is safer.

Thanks a ton for the replies I think I'm gonna sterilize the copper tube I have and rack it through that. I would like to try reduless unfortunately I don't have a way to get it to me quick enough my wort needs treatment soon. Ill be sure to filter it through plenty of activated carbon afterword witch I'm sure should get rid of most of the copper. I will also make sure to get some diammonium phosphate to add nitrogen next time and also a bit more nutrient so this hopefully doesn't happen again.

It is not a good idea to use a copper pipe, pennies or wire. As was already said--it puts an unhealthy dose of copper into the wine. Morewine sell Reduless--you might call them and see if they can over-night ship it to you. Reduless contains a safe level of copper.

Ya I'm gonna toss this batch out and make sure I put enough nutrients including dap in the next one and see about getting some ruduless to keep handy for next time thanks again for the replies.

If you step-feed nutrient you won't have this problem. Even DAP. High sugar musts HAVE to have nutrient or this is what happens. All wines--and what you were doing here--are high sugar musts.

K so what your saying is if I have a given amount of nutrients that I have to put in I should divide it up and feed to it over multiple days?

Yeah--you got it. Divide your entire nutrient dose in half. Pitch the first one when the yeast becomes active. Second dose at 50% sugar reduction. This is for using DAP--regular nutrient. Fermaid K is a little different inthat you pitch the second half at 1/3 sugar reduction. Always do this on every ferment and you will largely get yourself away from H2S problems.

Thanks a ton I'll have to give that a try next time.