Sulfur Smell from 1 Month Old Beer

Ingredients
1

I brewed a clone of Dog Fish Head’s Raison D’etre. A simple malt bill with 8 ounces of raisins, fermented with WLP530. The beer fermented at 70-72F, then dropped to 42F to clear and prepare for kegging. It sat at 72f for about a week and at 42f for three weeks.

Although I cannot get taste any off-flavors, I get a sulfur smell off this month old beer. The beer tastes great but that smell right-off the pour is concerning. It seems to dissipate quick when poured.

Any ideas what may have caused this and is there anything I can do?

2

try purging the keg a few times. if it blows off quickly when you pour a pint it might well blow off the sulfur from the keg.

3

Could you have an infection in your lines?  If it pours of quickyl it means the beer inside the keg is still ok, correct?

4

I flushed the lines with PBW. I also noticed it with the same taken from the carboy. It’s there, but not immediately apparent. Something that I am picking up.

5

Sulfur always disappears with age.  It will probably be gone in another week or two, although sometimes it takes a little longer.  It might be coming from the raisins, possibly.  Regardless, just needs a little more age.

6

+1.  A lot of Belgian strains throw sulfur initially. It’ll dissipate away pretty quickly. +1 to purging the keg a few times, too.

7

This my first batch with raisins - I hope that’s it  :-\

8

I can’t tell you it isn’t, but I’ve never gotten that from raisins.

9

I’ve gotten it from dates… and wild yeast.  The ancient Sumerian beer.  The sulfur disappeared in a few weeks though.

10

How much copper is in your brewing system? If there is no wort contact with copper, the wort may be copper-deficient. Copper complexes with sulfurous compounds and drops them out of solution. One of my clubmates put a piece on copper tube in a problematic beer for a few minutes and he said it cleared out his sulfur problem.

11

Yes, this has worked for me as well. Take a piece of copper and put it in the beer and swirl it around for a few minutes and you will noticed the copper fades significantly. If you are not using a copper IC or CFC add a piece of copper to your BK.

Sulfur does age out with time but it may take several weeks or even months depending. You can also bubble Co2 up through the beer via the did tube and see if that works.

12

My keggle has a copper dip tube, the wort is in contact with the dip tube for at least 100 minutes.

I purged the keg and it seems to have done the trick (thus far).

13

Were the raisins sulfured as a preservative? Some dried fruits are sulfured as a means of preservation. That could be one source. Another potential source might be yeast autolysis, which can apparently lend a sulfur-like aroma.

14

I bought the raisins at Trader Joes. Not sure if they were sulfured as the bag is long gone. The beer sat on the yeast cake for 1 month. About a week or more @ 72F then down to 40 F for clarifying.