m44 gone bananas.

[i drink to forget]

Sooo. brewed a standard AG pale ive done plenty of. However primary fermentation fell off a cliff at about .02 surface cleared completely although the yeast is still in suspension and doing a sloooow fermentation that is bringing the gravity down over days, which i wouldn't mind but it is crazy banananana smelling. now why are my poor M44 yeasts seeming so sad given that they had plenty of nutrients a good wort and its been probably on the lower side of the recommend temp all the time. The only thing i can think of as a possible is aeration but the whole lot trickled through a sieve from about 4 foot slowly over a couple hrs and was pretty foamy looking. i didn't bother rehydrating the yeast but it was only .05 gravity max.

 

[PZ]

I'm not sure I understood your aeration strategy, but if you exposed unfermented wort to open air for two hours from a height of four feet, you could have picked up all sorts of organisms that could produce lots of different (and unexpected) aromas. I would suggest using a more conventional method like shaking the fermenter or using a kitchen implement to create some froth. Our colleague from the Ozarks pours the wort between buckets a couple times and swears by his method, although even that much exposure to dust in the air would worry me. Count yourself as lucky that the smell is of a fruit and not something out of a dumpster on a hot summer day!

Also, if you reused the yeast you could have picked up something funky along the way.

Good luck!

 

[Nosybear]

If you don't want to go all the way up to oxygenation, get a paint stirrer, the kind that fit a drill chuck, and use your cordless drill to aerate! You'll get up to 8 ppm oxygen which is more than enough for most bers....

 

[i drink to forget]

its not a strategy its because i lost my mesh on the kettle and thats the speed that it trickled out! usually i just pour it from a height into the fermenter and its always fine. dont know the specifics of aeration ratios vis a vis time and flow rate but i expect they are comparable. to be honest i'm not too fussed about infections really and its definitely not infected. people worry too much. What is strange to me is why the yeast are pissed off. its now fermented down to what id expected but the yeast now shows no sign of wishing to floculate yet. still mad banana. not unpleasant but not what i wanted. circumstances are identical to all the many batches ive made but something not quite right.
Incidentally one of the last batches i made with m44 took a long time with a particularly bummy yeast flavour to it before settling out fine and really clean. Maybe m44 is just a bit more funny than old faithful 05.
I know its gonna be fine, just wondered if anyone had seen this bad behaviour.

 

[i drink to forget]

its not a strategy its because i lost my mesh on the kettle and thats the speed that it trickled out! usually i just pour it from a height into the fermenter and its always fine. dont know the specifics of aeration ratios vis a vis time and flow rate but i expect they are comparable. to be honest i'm not too fussed about infections really and its definitely not infected. people worry too much. What is strange to me is why the yeast are pissed off. its now fermented down to what id expected but the yeast now shows no sign of wishing to floculate yet. still mad banana. not unpleasant but not what i wanted. circumstances are identical to all the many batches ive made but something not quite right.
Incidentally one of the last batches i made with m44 took a long time with a particularly bummy yeast flavour to it before settling out fine and really clean. Maybe m44 is just a bit more funny than old faithful 05.
I know its gonna be fine, just wondered if anyone had seen this bad behaviour.

 

[PZ]

At this point give it some time. The cloudiness and fermenting beyond what you expect are also signs of infection with wild yeast, but maybe the yeast are just slow this time around. Homebrewers have been known to worry too much...