Sulfur smell developed in bottle?!

[biochemist]

Have a 1.5 month old chard semillion in bottles. They were goid when bottled but a month an half later the latest bottle seems to have a strong sulfur odor.
What did i do that generated the SH smell?
Can I fix the batch?

 

[Runningwolf]

Pour some into a glass. Put an old clean penny in it and swirl it around a bit. let it sit a minute or two. Did the smell fo away? If it did you have H2S. This can be cured with copper sulfate or a copper pipe or wire.

 

[Arne]

You mite try decanting for a little while. Let it sit and see if it goes away. I had this happen with a batch of Skeeter Pee and it went away after a time. I had it happen with something else and had to dose it with the copper. Just stirred with a clean sanatized copper pipe. Seemed like that batch always had just a touch of the oder, taste, tho.
Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[JohnT]

That sulphur (or rotten egg) smell is usually caused by yeast break down.

If the wine was only 1.5 months old, I would say that you bottled too soon. The yeast is probably still active and, although clear when you bottled, it will certainly cloud up later (epspecially if you let the wine warm up to 60+ degrees).

A good way to confirm this is to take a look at the corked bottle. Is there a layer of sediment at the bottom? Perhaps a light tan in color? When you opened the bottle and poured a glass, did it seem to be a little fizzy? If not, does the wine seem at all cloudy?

If you can say yes to any of the above, then your probable cause is active yeast breakdown.

To remedy, uncork/empty each bottle into a carboy. Once done, you need to kill the active yeast (otherwise the H2S issue will only come back). You can do this with either a good dose of k-meta or sorbate. Give it about a day to take hold.

Once that is complete, it is time to address the H2S issue. This is usually dealt with by the addition of copper to your wine. Copper will chemically bond to H2S and form an odorless insoluable mineral that will settle to the bottom and can be removed with later racking.

There are many ways to deliver copper to your wine. Like what runningwolf said, copper pennies or copper wire can do the trick. Just make sure that you use a Scoth-brite pad first to clean the copper before you add it to your wine.

Place the copper into your wine a wait a day or so. If you do not notice any improvement, then it is time to go more hard core. I would recomend against using copper sulfate as it is poisonous in high concentrations. I would highly recomend that you send away for a product called REDULESS. This product is much safer than copper sulfate and works like a charm.

Hope the above helps!

johnT.

 

[biochemist]

These are all great suggestions. The age and later production makes sense that the sorbate didnt do the trick, it is my second batch and i wonder if i didn't miss addind k sorbate? I will test the wine w copper and if that is it, transfer the wine to a carboy with cleaned copper and filter w my vin bright. Great suggestions all. Thanks so much.

 

[robie]

Is it possible you are smelling excess Kmeta and not a rotten egg smell?

Did you add more Kmeta just before you bottled?

 

[jdmyers]

Would it be helpful to always stirr with a piece of copper to prevent h2s in the first place

 

[Arne]

Would it be helpful to always stirr with a piece of copper to prevent h2s in the first place

I don't believe so. You don't have this problem all that often. Arne.

 

[JohnT]

Far better to rack sooner, use a tad bit more in the way of yeast neutriant, and also wait longer to bottle.

 

[biochemist]

Thanks all. There was a bit of tan flocculant in the bottles. I transferred all the bottles to a carboy, added k meta and placed a cleaned cooper piece in the wine. That seemed to do the trick on the smell, but the taste became flat and off. I dumped and learned a lesson to be careful in the future. Thanks for the advice to all.

 

[GreginND]

Since copper can be toxic in higher amounts you do not want to use copper all the time as a preventative measure. It is more of a last resort after you have a problem. And you should try to use the least amount that will take care of the problem.