Bad Smell in Primary Fermentation.

[T. Elkington]

Now for an update in the ongoing saga of my watermelon wine experiment.
I pitched on Sunday afternoon, and by that evening, the fermentation had
already taken off. Three days later and it's going gangbusters, I can
actually see the particulates circulating up and down from the vigor of
the fermentation, and the inner piece of the airlock barely has time to
come down before the next bubble is out. The problem: A smell like vomit
started up almost immediately. I can also smell a yeasty undertone, but
I'm wondering if I have some sort of infection.

Recipe:

I medium watermelon (2 gallons juice)
4 lbs honey (a little plain white sugar to bring to 4 lbs, I know, I'm a
bad boy)
2 tsps pectic enzyme
2 tsps yeast nutrient
I can't remember the yeast name, but its a "fruit wine" yeast, Lavlin or
something like that.

I had previously pointed out that I didn't strain out the fruit pulp
before going to primary fermentation, so I'm wondering 1) if that is
providing the smell 2) if, in screwing around trying to filter before
pitching, I infected the batch (I sanitized as thoroughly as possible).
The smell is somewhat similar to the smell from a Simha recipe I once made
with brown sugar and lemons.

Any ideas or suggestions? Will this smell go away as the fermentation
progresses?

Trevor Elkington

[The Beals]

I am not an expert on fermentation smells, but I know that during my first few
wine fermentations I spent an awful lot of time worrying about foul smells
emitted during fermentation and wondering whether my wine also had a bacterial
infection. The gases emitted during fermentation can smell bad. I would wait
until fermentation ceases and your wine has cleared. Then taste the wine and
see if it has any significant flaws. Otherwise, don't worry too much at this
juncture.

[Shannon Wheeler]

I just threw out 5 gallons of watermelon because of this vomit smell.
Similar recipe to yours (well actually 3 medium watermelons - just crushed
up the meat and topped up with water).

It was the second time I tried watermelon. The first time I had it out in
the garden shed and broke up the cap every day for a week. Everything looked
good (a little bit of foul smell but I wasn't sure what it was). Racked to
secondary. Left in the shed too long and it froze. I was able to pour some
liquid off that tasted really good and was quite stong :-). Actually this is
what I planned to do with this new batch so I tried freezing some of the
foul smelling stuff but it just froze solid. Pretty quickly too so I had to
throw it away.

T. Elkington wrote in message ...

[T. Elkington]

<Snip> Account of vomit smell in Watermelon Melomel fermentation.

Well, I went to Los Angeles for the weekend, and when I got back, the
fermentation was dead as a doornail and the smell was mostly gone. So I
figure I either had an infection, or the smell is somehow just a byproduct
of fermenting watermelon. At any rate, I am going to rack off the pulp
and lees and see if a seconday fermentation will start, and see if the
smell returns. Whatever happens, I'll probably bottle it anyway, just to
see how it tastes in 2 years. You never know.

Mostly, I'm suprised by the speed of the fermentation. It went from
nearly boiling-like tempo to nothing in slightly more than 72 hours.
Weird.

Trevor

On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Shannon Wheeler wrote:

> I just threw out 5 gallons of watermelon because of this vomit smell.
> Similar recipe to yours (well actually 3 medium watermelons - just crushed
> up the meat and topped up with water).
>

Recipe: