Vinegar smell after fermentation

[Rocky79]

Hi, first post on here but spent many hours trawling the site and need some advice or a least confirmation.

Just put my second ever brew into the barrel and think I've got a problem with it.

The first one brew I ever did was reasonable but the barrel lid cracked unbeknown to me but just meant the brew went off a bit quickly.

This one is a bog standard coopers lager kit, with 1kg of coopers brew enchanter. Fermentation went off nicely if not dramatically. I left the brew I the bucket for 3 weeks In end, longer than I wanted too but didn't have a chance before now to rack it to the barrel. On opening the fermentation bucket there is a distinctive smell of vinegar or almost ammonia like. I asked my wife for a second opinion and she thought it just smelt like yeast.

In any case it's In the barrel. I'm assuming it's lost but what could have caused it?

I was really careful cleaning. I didn't totally seal the fermentation bucket lid down so could that be it or the fact I left it too long in the bucket?

Any pointers greatly received.

Thanks

[GrowlingDogBeer]

It's quite normal to get bad smells like vinegar especially when you first open the fermenter. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It will probably be fine.

[Fil]

you cant judge a beer till after its ready so dont write it off too early, as long as your lid was in place a crack of the seal is nothing to worry about, the heavier than air co2 produced from the fermentation will sit above the beer protecting it from air/o2 and the lid will stop anything dropping down into it.

Trust the beer gods, they want you to have a good pint

[Dave-Leeds]

I just made a coopers bitter with 1kg bke.and 100g of honey kept temp at 18ç and that smelled like rotten eggs.

even the sample from test tube smelled and tasted awfull. But i am sure after its been in the bottles a while things

will change. Just have to wait

[Rocky79]

Thanks for the words of wisdom. I won't do anything drastic just yet then!