I have two batches that I bottled about a month ago that both used BE-134 and both have a slight-but-noticeable barnyard-in-a-bad-waysulfur aroma . . . they taste great but there’s a distinct note in the nose when you pour them.
Have any of you ever gotten a “drainpipe” / mercaptan-ysulfur aroma from BE-134? The homebrew club thought it might have been a temperature issue, but I checked my temp readings for them, and they both stayed in the middle of the range for BE-134.
Or do you think it’s more likely a bacterial contamination issue? I did use the same bottling tubing and bottle-filler on both batches. It’s probably time to replace that filler; so I’ll prob swap out that hardware anyway.
Edit: On subsequent the re-tastings, I think I was panicking a bit calling it mercaptan. It’s more of sulfur note… Not ideal but I’m less sure of it being contamination than I was for minute there.
I’ve experienced this in a couple beers (different yeasts) so I’m interested in whether this might be a process issue. I never figured out why this happened to me.
Every yeast puts out sulfur, some more than others. The worst offenders are often… Belgian and German. But not to worry… the sulfur will disappear with age. Just probably needs another week or two as it fades to become non-perceptible.
I had a period where every beer I made with a particular yeast ( I think it was MJ M42 or any "Nottingham-type yeast) made my beer stink of open sewers. Adding a bit of nutrient helped and, more often than not, the beer would clean itself up in the bottle. I went through the most rigorous cleaning regimes because I thought I had a persistent infection, but to no avail. I changed my yeasts and the problem went away and hasn’t returned.
I should add that apart from their (rather silly) rebranding of their yeasts, I find Mangrove Jack’s sachets perfectly reliable and I regularly use them, but not M42. I can only assume that there was something in or a deficiency in my water which was causing this.
