I just checked on my fermenting belgian ale and sniffed the airlock, i smelled “banana seltzer”…whats up with this and is it normal? Is the final product gonna smell like this? Ambient temp is 60*F maybe a little higher…wyeast 1388
While its actively fermenting it will smell nothing like the finished product.
Depending upon OG and the amount of yeast pitched the fermentation temperature will be 3° to 15° higher than ambient temperature. Higher fermentation temperatures will give you banana and clove aromas. Perfect for some styles.
15* higher is probably a bit of a stretch. I generally find it 3-5*
I used WLP500 before and got a very strong banana aroma that unfortunately carried over into the beer. After 2 months it had faded a lot. Four months it is nothing but a slight after taste I might not even notice had I not drank it the whole way through. For the beer I made, a dark with black pepper corns; banana was not anything I was looking for. Your yeast and wlp500 are different so maybe it is just active ferment smell…either way age it out if need be and I think it will go away like my experience. Ambient temp for mine was around 65 with a OG of 1.061. It was my first Belgian and I have since used WLP530 which I liked a lot more.
I have not used the yeast, but:
Esters can mean bannana smell, quite normal for German wiessen yeasts.
I would not worry about it.
Don’t most belgian style ales have a bit of banana to them?
Remember that what you smell coming out of your airlock during active fermentation is compounds LEAVING your beer, they won’t necessarily carry over. Some lager yeasts have a nasty rotten egg sulfur smell during fermentation.
A belgian yeast like that one WILL be estery, but what you smell right now isn’t necessarily representative of the finished product.
Don’t worry about your temp, an ambient of 60 should be fine. In fact, as fermentation starts to wind down, you may even consider warming it up slightly if you can, to make sure you get good attenuation.
I always rather liked the airlock/fermenting process smell.( Sometimes a bread baking like smell). But as stated it really isnt what the finished product will be.
