Rotten Egg Smell with SP

[Trey Cox]

I am making my first batch of SP in secondary fermentation has the bad “rotten egg smell”. When I completely dry out and degas should it go away?

 

[NorCal]

This off smell (H2S) is usually due to lack of nutrient during ferment, did you use any? The best thing will be to aggressively splash rack it, exposing it to oxygen and getting it to blow off. It may take a few times but it usually work.

Best to do it sooner than later. It can get to a point of no return if it starts forming mercaptans.

 

[Trey Cox]

I did add nutrient. I tried to follow the original SP receipt off of this site. I splash racked, will check in a few days to see if it helped. Thanks

 

[NorCal]

I’d give it another smell now, if it is still smelly, splash it again. I’ve never seen H2S get better on its own, it can only get worse. When I splash racked mine I was dumping carboys completely vertical into a 44 gallon brute, 3 or 4 times. Usually you want to have a gentle hand with wine, but there are also times you need a sledge hammer. In my experience, ridding yourself of a mild/mid case of H2S, splashing is the way to go. The next cure would be to trial a finite amount of copper solution (or products, whose active ingredient is copper, like redulees), but adding stuff like that to wine is always the final attempt to save a wine, that I would otherwise throw out.