Dar V wrote:
The other poster is absolutely correct in what they have to say about the
rotten egg smell and grape wines, but the original poster is making wines
from fruit. I've smelled some pretty odd things from my fruit and veggie
wines, but the bad smells go away pretty quickly (within a few hours) and
then they smell okay. I guess I would do what poster says if the smells
persist more than a few hours. Sometimes its hard to tell the difference
between a rotten smell and strong alcohol smell when one doesn't have much
experience. Maybe someone who has made both kinds of wine (grapes and fruit)
could comment.
Darlene

"Bruce_Nolte_N3LSY&" wrote in message
...

Stu Pedaso wrote:

I have 3 batches going, added yeast on Sunday. 1 is a 2gallon apple and
pear, using K1-V1116 it is foaming nicely but
has a very funny smell. My wife says rotten, I say just a very strong
alcohol. 2 is a 1gal sumac (may be high in tannin) has no foam. A small
sample
placed in a glass yesterday had small bubbles, like soda.

3 is a 1 quart banana trial. no foam either. just small bubbles.

I used 71B-1122 on 2 and 3. Both have a funny smell, almost a rotten
egg smell, but there is also a hint of working yeast and alcohol.

I've only made one apple batch prior to these. and it smeledl much
better than these. Any suggestions, does 71B-1122 hardly foam?
Stu

You have come down with the dreaded Hydrogen Sulfide disease my friend!
Hydrogen Sulfide forms during fermentation when there is an excess of
Sulfur present on the grapes due to late spraying to prevent mildew, or
there are certain critical nutrients missing or in short supply in the
grapes. It has plagued winemakers since ancient times, and can be
sometimes difficult to deal with even today. Leaving especially whites on
the gross lees too long can cause this condition as well. I am still
learning how to deal with this, I discovered I had this problem in a big
way on my Chardonnay when I did the first racking. Phew! It was so strong
my eyes watered.

First, the bad news: If you don't deal with this problem quickly, you
might as well dump the wine down the sewer. What happens is that if the
H2S remains dissolved in the wine, it will react with Alcohol to form
Mercaptans, which in turn will form disulfides and polydisulfides, which
are almost impossible to remove from the finished wine.

The good news is, if you catch the problem early you can probably save the
wine. Hydrogen Sulfide is present as a gas in solution in the wine. By
just aerating it, you will remove much of the gas, but you also will have
to deal with the Mercaptans that are already forming in the wine.
I Googled for information on this topic, and came up with these links,
along with several other good links that concisely explain the problem,
and how to deal with it:

http://www.sdaws.org/Articles/Article4.htm
http://www.grapestompers.com/article...en_sulfide.htm
http://www.bcawa.ca/winemaking/h2s.htm

Fermentation of peaches, apples, pears, and so on work with pretty much
the same chemistry as grapes. Sulfur occurs to varying degrees in just
about everything we eat. Fruit trees themselves have many of the same
issues with powdery mold as grapes, in some cases even worse. They are
dealt with the same way by an application of lime-sulfur spray just like
grapes by the orchard men. It wouldn't be surprising to see H2S form in
fruit wines as well.