Help. What can cause this aroma?

[sancycling]

I'm starting to brew on a new equipment BrewHa, 15 gal batches. I had an aroma problem with my fourth batch that I can't figure out where it's coming from.

Hoppy Red Ale. 45% pale malt, 45% maris otter, 5% caramel 60, 4% caramel 120 and 1% black malt (% are aprox, just writing what I remember). 80ibus of cascade. Most at the end of the boil and dry hopped with cascade and amarillo. Used Nottingham yeast (rehydrated).

Problem. After kegging and force carbonating the beer has a pretty bad aroma. It goes away after 10mins or so. It smells like Salami, old meat, cured ham. For what I read, it can be autolysis. The beer was in the fermenter at 65F for 3 weeks, at 73 for 1 week (dryhop) and cold crashing at 40F for 1.5 weeks.

The aroma was present from week 3 in the fermenter. That's the first time I tried the beer.

Any ideas what could have gone wrong or where I messed up?

Yeast was fresh and foamed when rehydrating. I oxygenated for about 1.5min with oxygen and stone. I'm quite obssesive with sanitization. And with the brewha fermentation is done in the same vessel where boiling is done with no transfers.
OG 1.060 down to FG 1.010.

I appreciate the help!

 

[billl]

5.5 weeks on the yeast is long, but not THAT long. I wouldn't expect off flavors from healthy yeast at that point, but if your yeast health is sub-optimum, then all bets are off. I'd look at your pitch rates and make sure to use a yeast nutrient.

As a practical matter, Notti should not take long to march through a 1.060 beer. If you've sprung for a fancy setup, why not just dump the yeast after fermentation is done? The larger the batch size, the greater stresses the yeast are under at the bottom of that fermenter.

 

[IslandLizard]

If it were yeast autolysis, I doubt that smell and taste would go away after 10 minutes of "airing out." Maybe it was just starting and you got the leading edge of it.

Also, Nottingham has a very specific taste/aroma profile. Not everyone likes it.

 

[sancycling]

Thanks for the responses.
I didn't dump the yeast when fermentation was done because of ignorance. I know that is the advantage of a conical... but I'm still thinking of my glass carboys. I'll definitely look into dumping the yeast on my next batch.

And regarding the Notty aroma, I've brewed several batches with it with my old setup, and I've never gotten this particular smell.

The good thing is that it goes away after airing out a bit. I'll do a rebrew and see if there are any changes.

If any other ideas come to mind, please let me know.