Sweet smelling fermented feed normal?

[SwtGrc]

Good morning, good afternoon (to some)!
I just started fermenting a small batch. Seemed to be going well. I let it ferment about 3 days. It smells almost sweet to me. Is this typical? Is it ready to feed or am I looking for something different?
No mold of course. I used wheat and barely this time just to experiment.
Appreciate some feedback, I'm extremely new but love to adopt new/better methods.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Good morning, good afternoon (to some)!
I just started fermenting a small batch. Seemed to be going well. I let it ferment about 3 days. It smells almost sweet to me. Is this typical? Is it ready to feed or am I looking for something different?
No mold of course. I used wheat and barely this time just to experiment.
Appreciate some feedback, I'm extremely new but love to adopt new/better methods.

Sounds more like you made a precursor to beer there to me. I used to home brew but never got into the part of extracting my own sugars from my grains to make my wert.

My brief foray into FF was that it is sour and easily grows hair after 8 hours. Also if you are growing it in cool outdoor temperatures it will go slowly. When I did FF the chicken did love it, but I used commercial feed as my base. Are your grains even cracked to allow the yeast access to the starches they want?

 

[lazy gardener]

My ferment has varying smell. Most recent batch has a bit of a sour tangy smell. Occasionally, it will smell a bit yeasty. I've never had mold issues, and they eat it all.

 

[SwtGrc]

Sounds more like you made a precursor to beer there to me. I used to home brew but never got into the part of extracting my own sugars from my grains to make my wert.

My brief foray into FF was that it is sour and easily grows hair after 8 hours. Also if you are growing it in cool outdoor temperatures it will go slowly. When I did FF the chicken did love it, but I used commercial feed as my base. Are your grains even cracked to allow the yeast access to the starches they want?

Darn! No, it was whole grains. They did eat most of it. I've added scratch this time to the original water. Hopefully that will work better?

 

[AllenK RGV]

I would think it would do better also to ensure your FF has a chance to get seeded by the environment so no airtight lid. Also I went for a just softer than penutbutter consistancy. Others will use a smidge of yougurt to seed a new start as well.

 

[SwtGrc]

I would think it would do better also to ensure your FF has a chance to get seeded by the environment so no airtight lid. Also I went for a just softer than penutbutter consistancy. Others will use a smidge of yougurt to seed a new start as well.

What do you mean peanut butter consistency?
Also, I've read an article that recommended an airtight lid.
I'm confused now

 

[jane s chickens]

I do ferment wheat & it takes 3+ days to ferment & does smell sweeter than corn fermented. My chickens eat it better than anything else fermented.

 

[jane s chickens]

Use open bucket, stir everyday, add water to keep it covered, save about1/2 gallon of liquid to start next batch.

 

[AllenK RGV]

The reason for not using an airtight lid is to allow yeast and lactobacillus in to the ferment since it needs to "Seed" bebofe it can grow.
Also related to consistancy I was using crumble as a base not grains and didn't want to force my chicken to drink more than they wanted naturally.

Additionally, you don't want to bottle up an actively fermenting yeast culture as they respire and produce quite some pressure.

 

[AllenK RGV]

To give you an idea of the amount of pressure they can generate just think of beer. My final bottling step was to add a known quantity of honey/sugars to the final product and close the bottle cap my yeast did the rest to get it carbonated.