Raspberry Irish Red

[mortong]

...with no raspberries added.

I made a batch of Irish Red last night, pitched the yeast, and it's off and bubbling 3ploinks/second right now. A constant stream of Co2 is coming out, smelling overwhelmingly of raspberries.

There's no real beer smell, it just smells like I've got 20 pounds of fresh raspberries in the closet. I've had fruity smells before, but this is ridiculous! ;)

I'm not so much worried about anything bad happening - it's a good smell, just not a beer smell. I figure it must be the yeast.

Again, this is not an "ohmygod the beer is ruined" thread, just a "hmm, that's odd" thread.

Any similar experiences?

Safale s-04 dried ale yeast

7# EDME British Ultra Light
1/2# 60L Crystal Malt
1/2# English Carastan
1/2# Maltodextrin

1oz Chinook (added at 5 min)
1.5oz Centennial (added at 55 min)
1oz Columbus (dry hop, not added yet)

[ray m]

Mortong, the intense raspberry smell you speak of is concerning me. I am assuming you did not put in raspberry flavoring or anything like that. For the life of me, I can't explain, based on your ingredients, why the raspberry smell exists. What's your fermentation temp? All sanitation procedures adhered to?

[mortong]

No, there is no raspberry flavoring - only the ingredients I listed.

The temp is staying at a constant 70 degrees on the thermometer.

As far as I know my sanitation was fine. Everything touching the wort was sanitized - I keep a seperate bucket with sani solution in it when I'm brewing, and I always put everything in it when I'm done using it (after a wash of course). If something touches the wort, it gets an immediate rinse and into the sani bucket it goes, even if I re-use it again in a few minutes.

My first thought was that it was fruity - almost cidery (but more like fresh apples). Then I thought back to the Framboise I had last week and made the connection between scents (I hate bringing up talk of Lambic in this discussion - although I'm glad I like it).

One problem area I can think of is cooling time. I just moved into a new apartment, with a much less convenient sink. This slowed my cooling time to an hour and a half (from an hour). Although it seems that this newer building would be safer than my old moldy apartment that had nasties growing in any beer residue left in the bottom of a pint glass within 24 hours.

Just for the record - there is no cider, vinegar or sulfer smell. There may be a bit of an alcoholic/beer fermenting smell that I'm used to, but it's hard to tell for sure beneath the raspberry smell.

I checked a list of common off scents and flavors, this is all I can come up with:

Acetaldehyde - it's a little on the warm side, at least on the upper end of the safe fermenting range. This may have something to do with it.

Esters - from the higher temp

Wild Yeast?

Bacteria - Probably not aceto because of the lack of vinegar smell, but what about Lactobacteria? What kind of smells do they produce?

Anyone have any other ideas? I plan on letting it ferment out until it stops bubbling, then give it a taste before secondary.

This really has me boggled, though. I keep going back to the closet to get another smell - just to make sure I wasn't mistaken.

Even my roommate said, "smells like raspberries," so I know it's not just me.

I'm not panicking too much yet because it's hard to imagine anything that smells this good could be too horrible, but only time will tell.

[mortong]

.

[Herb Ninja]

Did somebody say raspberry? Lambic?!? Ohh false alarm. :p

I still don't understand how it can smell like raspberry, what the heck?

[YamahaXS]

whats your yeast strain?


my guess is its just a interaction between your yeast and the ingrediant. Also, the closet will concentrate the 'smell'. Nothing to worry about friend, so bottoms up!

[ray m]

Still stumped, Mortong, so I'll go with what Yamaha is suggesting---some sort of interaction between yeast & such. I don't know much about lacto yeast strains, but I know the flavor profile is fruity-sourish. I think as long as you don't think the odor of your brew is offensive, let it ride---I bet it'll be an awesome brew! (like most of us here, you're probably being super-paranoid).

[mortong]

I pulled off the grommet and airlock and risked a peek inside. The krausen looks normal - nothing unusual inside. So I'll just let it ferment out and see what happens. I'll update and let you know how it is when I transfer to secondary. =)

Thanks everyone
Geoff

[mortong]

I just transferred this ale to secondary a few minutes ago. Everything turned out fine. High hops and a slight fruity undertone (standard amount for an ale).

The raspberry smell is gone, except for in the krausen residue and the trub - oh, and the airlock sanitizer solution probably would have tasted like raspberry syrup if I'd have taken a sip.

Who knows - esters, acetaldehyde? Whatever it was, it evaporated out, leaving me with a pretty decent Irish Ale.

Two weeks to bottling. =D

Geoff

[paul84043]

Did you make the Frambois? Or just drink a few?
It sounds like you're using the plastic bucket method, if you were using carboys, you wouldn't have to "peek" at the beer....
Plastic holds smells from previous brews very well, in fact it's nearly impossible to get them out.
Maybe it's a leftover smell mixing with the frutiness of a higher temp ferment?

It sounds like its going to come out alright anyway so everything should be fine....

[mortong]

Nope, I didn't make the frambois. =/ I'd love to, but it won't happen.

Yes, I am using plastic buckets. I've got two glass secondaries, and won't be upgrading to glass primaries until January.

[ray m]

I am pleased at your success, Mortong.....glad all is well with your brew!!!:)

[sallad]

i always put vodka in my airlocks. i bought the cheapest 1.75L bottle i could find... but i suppose one could use some of that fancy rasberry vodka if one really wanted to...

you didn't do that, did you mortong?

good to hear that your beer is fine!

[mortong]

Yikes, I'd better check which bottle I used! At least it wasn't the Absolut Peppar :P

That's not a bad idea though, I may switch over from Iodophor solution to vodka on future batches (although I've never had problems). It just seems to be one less thing that can go wrong, since Iodophor breaks down after it's diluted.

[paul84043]

I Use Vodka as well, it's really not all that uncommon to have the liquid sucked back into the fermenter at two stages. Initially after you've filled the fermenter and it's all ready to go, a few hours later, usually my airlock has emptied out a bit, I think that all the air bubbles have left the building and the wort is colling off and contracting.
Then at the end of primary fementation for the same reasons.
The wort will heat up a considerable amount during fermentation, I have even had to put wet towels on mine from time to time to keep them from over heating, even when the temp in the room is only 72 or so.