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Hey all - greetings from Cork. Been reading the forum a few months now, great resource and very helpful. I've only been making cider for the last few weeks/monthys and am new to the game really - my wife, brother in law and I have put together the pressing/pulping equipment during the Autumn and have about 200 pints fermenting away. Most of it's doing well but the final batch (30L or so, spread over a few different fermenters) is smelling like sulphur lately and fermenting very slowly, but fermenting nonetheless and web trawling tells me that such smells are comepletly normal. Jesus its rotten though at the moment! The rest of it tastes fantastic. Some of it ive racked a few times and its cleared and stopped fermenting so i guess its conditioning now (will have to bottle some for xmas though....!) and the rest is approaching a nice balance (to my taste anyway!) of alchol/sweetness so we'll stop that soon. Cold weather should help slow things down too... now if only my spare fermenters weren't being use to hold water while our pipes are frozen solid....! Im not sacrificing the cider though!
Cheers
John

Welcome John, seems like you have a nice stock built up <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

John

Don't worry about the sulphur smell....yet! it's hydrogen sulphide produced by the yeasts, you will almost always get it with a wild yeast fermentation and some cultured yeasts are more prone to it than others if you ferment warm/fast and did not add nutrients to the juice at the start.

It will usually disappear at the end of fermentation and after racking and let sit for a week or two,if not then you have a problem that needs to be treated quickly, otherwise if left untreated it changes to an unremovable form of sulphide.

I have several hundred ltrs fermenting at the moment and two of my 60 ltr barrels are stinking,both are wild yeasts but I am not concerned yet as they won't be finished fermenting till maybe Feb or March.

Mark.

Hello All

I've spent the last 2 years planning on taking the homebrew plunge but for various reasons I've only gotten around to it now - finally ordered all my kit last week. Had a hard time deciding which kit to start with but settled on Milestone's Dasher the Flasher. Obviously it won't be ready for Christmas but it'll give me something to look forward to in the new year!

Hoping to brew next Saturday. Can't wait!

Welcome to the site! Any questions, let us know, and be sure to read the kit-brewing article[/url:7mevh0hj].

&amp;quot;TheBeerNut&amp;quot;:1w5aukpb wrote: Welcome to the site! Any questions, let us know, and be sure to read the kit-brewing article[/url:1w5aukpb].[/quote:1w5aukpb]

Thanks - I think I nearly know that article by heart at this stage - bit paranoid about my first time <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->