So I'm new to this homebrew thing, on my second batch. I bought a stout recipe kit from Northern Brewer, brewed it up yesterday and came home to a mess today. The air- lock blew off. I cleaned up and all of that jazz, but now there is a rather harsh alcohol/ malt smell lingering in my apartment. Is there anyway y'all know to neutralize this oder?
Maybe open a window. But if malt aroma bothers you, brewing may not be your thing. About the only fermentation aroma that I would find objectionable is sulfur, but it's unlikely you're getting sulfur with a typical stout. Actually, come to think of it...you shouldn't really be smelling much alcohol either, What was the temperature of your wort (not the ambient air temp) before the blow-off?
Try to ferment cool and that will help keep the yeast at bay. This will slow fermentation and will make fermentation take longer and will give you less flavors from the yeast (generally). When I clean up the basement (brewery), I tend to use a little ammonia and a touch of soap in a sink basin of water. After just about passing out from the ammonia, you don't focus so much on the alcohol scent.
During the brew the malty smell it's quite pleasant but this is very harsh. As for the temperature, I'm not sure as i was at work when it blew. It did get pretty toasty today and i didn't leave my ac on.
They are a "higher" alcohol (more carbons than ethyl alcohol) and are an intermediate product of every fermentation. And they taste harsh/solventy. When the yeast are growing, they make fusels. Later, the yeast convert the fusels to esters. But if there were too many fusels made, the yeast can't convert all of them. One of the things that can lead to high fusel levels is high temperatures during the growth phase. It's a major reason why temperature control is important.
Hey man, welcome to brewing. I'd suggest checking out the free ebook How to Brew. What Vikeman said is spot on. In a nutshell, yeast can actually make a lot of things other than CO2, and ethanol (the alcohol we drink). Some of these things are dictated by the temperature. If the temperature is too warm, they will make fusel alcohols, and those don't taste good. Or smell good. I don't know if that is what you are smelling, but I'd suggest you get an adhesive thermometer (fermometer) and stick that on your fermenting vessel so you know what temp it is. Knowing the temp your beer is at is a really important thing. That having been said, different yeast strains have different temperatures they are happy at. If your yeast aren't happy, you won't be happy. Temperature control is just as important as sanitation.
