Fermenting Scenting!

[JayZeus]

I'm just curious if anyone else notices the space around their carboy smelling during the fermenting process. I've brewed only 7 or 8 times and this latest batch was my first time using White Labs liquid yeast. All the others were dry yeast with SafeAle No5 and I had to get my schnoz right up to the air lock to smell anything...
This latest one though? Oh man! I can smell it 10ft away! I'm curious if its the recipe, or the yeast that's made a difference.

Thoughts?

 

[Panderson1]

Yep. Some of the best hop aromas you will ever smell come out of that airlock.

 

[hotbeer]

I smell all sorts of things coming from the FV at different times. Hops being one of the best smells. Amazingly or perhaps thankfully my wife doesn't seem to notice them. Otherwise she'd probably make me get the FV out of the house.

She does complain about the blump, blump, blump noise of the CO2 from the blow off tubes in the bubbler bottles.

 

[Elric]

Different ferments will give different smells and the yeast/bacteria/hops used are the likeliest ingredients to create the smells we all get. Some are amazing (citrus aromatics from hops), some can be not so nice (sulphur from some yeasts), and some can be downright nasty (won't get into specifics, but some bugs used to make sours can put off some nasty scents while they are working!).
I was convinced I would be throwing out my first attempt at a sour it had such a horrible smell while the lacto was working. But by the time the beer finished brewing it was absolutely delicious and there was no trace of the hideous smell either on the nose or on the palate.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I have a stout fermenting now with an English yeast, it throws wonderful red berries and ripe plums aromas through the airlock.
I'm actually a little bummed the fermentation has started to slow down...

 

[bwible]

Most likely recipe but also the amount of activity. When a yeast gets going good its a constant stream coming out of the airlock, not one or two bubbles at a time. Beers with late hops in the recipe will push out some nice aroma. Which I like the smell of, but then you realize if its being pumped out of the airlock its not staying in your beer.