Removing Sulfur Post Fermentation

[CTS]

Hello!

I made a Dunkelweizen with Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen fermented at 62f for 6 days then rasied up to 70f for about 5 days now with no reduction in sulfur smell. I started to cool it back down now because the diacetyl rest is doing nothing for it.

I took a sample last night that smelled of sulfur is still there, i figure I would leave it out and see how it smelled in the morning. To my surprise the sulfur smell was totally gone, by just leaving it out in the open.

I need this beer to be ready and carbed in 2 weeks for a competition, i don't want to just take the cap off and let it off gas while being exposed to oxygen, or use copper to remove the sulfur due to it being a trace metal.

My plan is to cold crash, carb and keep purging the keg till the smell is gone...will this work or is this beer just not going to make it for the competition?

Thanks for your help!

 

[day_trippr]

Folks are known to bubble gas through wine to attenuate sulfur notes, might try that by putting a beer QD on a CO2 line and bubbling through the long diptube with the PRV latched open. While I wouldn't do that to an IPA (god forbid it had sulfur notes for some reason) as it would strip the hop aromatics, there's not much hoppiness in a weizen to lose...

Cheers!

 

[couchsending]

Copper... if you can find a way to transfer it through a piece of copper that will most likely do the trick. Never done it myself but read plenty about it. Thought about sanitizing a penny but again never tried it. Also once the beer is in a keg running gas through the dip tube and pulling the prv a few times could work but you might lose other aromatics as well.

 

[CTS]

Folks are known to bubble gas through wine to attenuate sulfur notes, might try that by putting a beer QD on a CO2 line and bubbling through the long diptube with the PRV latched open. While I wouldn't do that to an IPA (god forbid it had sulfur notes for some reason) as it would strip the hop aromatics, there's not much hoppiness in a weizen to lose...

Cheers!

Might have to give this a try, I just tasted the sample that I had out and while the smell is gone the taste is not.

Copper... if you can find a way to transfer it through a piece of copper that will most likely do the trick. Never done it myself but read plenty about it. Thought about sanitizing a penny but again never tried it. Also once the beer is in a keg running gas through the dip tube and pulling the prv a few times could work but you might lose other aromatics as well.

This was my original idea and it worked like a charm in another sample I took. Then I found some more readings that copper pre ferment is ok but copper post ferment is a no no due to it being a trace metal in a low PH environment.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Sulfur is very volatile. This means it escapes easily. A common method for getting rid of it is simply release the CO2 pressure on the keg a couple times a day. After you release the pressure, give it a swirly swishy. After a few days of this, you should find that most of the sulfur is gone. The CO2 bubbling thing works really well also and is a little faster, but this is a bit easier to do in the fermenter. There are a lot of lager yeasts that create oodles of sulfur. The fermenter (and the room its in) can smell like rotten egg dog farts for days or weeks. With enough lagering time (just sitting there cold), that sulfur goes away. In your case with a time crunch, that probably wont work.

 

[CTS]

Sulfur is very volatile. This means it escapes easily. A common method for getting rid of it is simply release the CO2 pressure on the keg a couple times a day. After you release the pressure, give it a swirly swishy. After a few days of this, you should find that most of the sulfur is gone. The CO2 bubbling thing works really well also and is a little faster, but this is a bit easier to do in the fermenter. There are a lot of lager yeasts that create oodles of sulfur. The fermenter (and the room its in) can smell like rotten egg dog farts for days or weeks. With enough lagering time (just sitting there cold), that sulfur goes away. In your case with a time crunch, that probably wont work.

I ended up doing a bit of yours and day_trippr's suggestions.

Once I got the keg ready for beer and pressurised I hooked it up to the fermenter for a closed transfer. I then let the pressure from the keg back into the fermenter and bubble away which worked really well. I filled as normal and am force carbing and releasing the pressure a couple times a day. Will see how it turned out next weekend!