This is the first batch of wine I have made in awhile and it started to
ferment as normal after around 10 hours. It has been fermenting for around
a day, and all of a sudden it started to have an egg or sulfer odor. I
never have had this happen, but have heard of this and I don't remember what
the problem or remidy is. Any suggestions or thoughts.

Thanks,
Shane

Shane wrote:
> This is the first batch of wine I have made in awhile and it started to
> ferment as normal after around 10 hours. It has been fermenting for
> around a day, and all of a sudden it started to have an egg or sulfer
> odor. I never have had this happen, but have heard of this and I don't
> remember what the problem or remidy is. Any suggestions or thoughts.
>
> Thanks,
> Shane

The quick fix is to aerate the fermenting must to drive out the
sulfurous stuff and get some extra oxygen to the yeast.

The cause is unhappy yeast which have begun to do a reductive fermentation.
Some yeasts are more sensitive to this phenomenon than others (i.e. some
yeasts have high nutrient requirements)

Often the problem is caused by insufficient nutrients for the yeast.
This can occur in musts where the nitrogen content of the grapes was low.
Adding a low dose of yeast nutrient may turn around the fermentation.
Fermaid K is one common yeast nutrient. It has more 'goodies' for the
yeast than DAP (diammonium phosphate); it has DAP plus the goodies.

Gene

Ditto what Gene said. A small addition of DAP and a little aeration
should fix it.

Some yeasts are more prone to this than others. I gave up with
Montrachet because no matter what I did, it seemed to always produce
H2S. RC212 can also produce H2S if it isn't entirely happy; a little
DAP a day into fermentation can keep this under control.

Greg G.

did the trick, thanks
> wrote in message
...
> Ditto what Gene said. A small addition of DAP and a little aeration
> should fix it.
>
> Some yeasts are more prone to this than others. I gave up with
> Montrachet because no matter what I did, it seemed to always produce
> H2S. RC212 can also produce H2S if it isn't entirely happy; a little
> DAP a day into fermentation can keep this under control.
>
> Greg G.
>