Beer Forum

So, how does one eliminate or even avoid sulphur notes thrown off by the classic weihenstephan hefe yeast strain? It's been hit or miss with me.

Are you talking about sulfur during fermentation or sulfur in the finished product? It usually dissipates after active fermentation if given the time.

You answeredmy question. I need to leave it longer in the fermenter.

A cold liquid will hold more gas into solution, just raise the temp toward the end of fermentation and a lot of that sulphur will blow out of the airlock. Also giving your carboy a gentle swirl at the end of fermentation and it will help kick some of that out of solution.

So what I'm getting here is that you can't do much to prevent the sulphur in fermentation. All you can do is ride it out until it dissipates, however long that takes...

Sulfide appears is beer as jungbuket (bouquet of youth) which in in the popular translation of DeClerck is rendered as 'beer stench'. The sulfide can come from two sources: sulfur containing amino acids (cysteine, methionine) and from sulfate in the water. As you don't have much control over the amino acid makeup of your malt/wheat that leaves the water. Low sulfate water is desirable for wheat beers in terms of what it does to hops but I suppose it would be desirable from the jungbuket point of view as well. But jungbuket isn't really a problem as it will fade in time. You can hasten this a bit by overcarbonating and then letting the overcarbonation bleed off. The CO2 leaving the beer will 'scrub out' some of the volatiles. You didn't say whether you were asking about sulfidic or sulfitic aromas. CO2 scrubbing and/or tincture of time will work in either case.

CO2 scrubbing also helped a beer I had a little DMS showing in a few months back. Put a beer out connector on the gas hose and scrubbed from bottom to top while bleeding off keg. Thanks the the BNA for that tip, btw.