German Brewing

I believe it is H2S, because it definitely doesn't smell of sulfites. It has that raunchy egg aroma.

I also cut my SO4 level down to whatever the sulfite gives me (~30ppm?), because I found some sources saying excess levels could lead to more H2S being formed.

Fair points, but in the past I have been pitching ~100B cells per gallon, which is around 3m cells/ml/plato. I also oxygenate to 8-10 ppm oxygen immediately after pitch.

I am going to try Techbrau's pitching rate and see how that works out, I have a wort that is currently cold crashing in the conical @7C, going to pitch when I get home. Tried a few different things this time, hopefully all goes well.

I ferment in ZKVs

That gives me the opportunity to dump the yeast twice before transfer (0.5-0.8% from Vsend)

Pitch at 5C, main temp 8-9C, transfer at 3C (lager cellar temp).

My cell count is 20-25 * 10^6 cells perl ml

O2 is at 6-9mgl

Yeast is currently directly from Weihenstephan. W43/70, W109 or W105

FYI i am currently testing new fermentation equipment. A bit too early to talk about results, but the B&K is a dream to work with.

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I will have to find them again, but the gist of it was that the metabolism of sulfate produces SO2 and H2S, so reducing sulfate reduced the the sulfur compounds. I found some cool tests used in the wine industry for measuring sulfide production, along with sulfide test strips. However, the strips aren't nearly accurate enough for testing.

@Weizen - how much dead space is in the keg? Do you modify the shanks at all, or just use it normally and push yeast and trub out via the beer out?

No dead-space. They are perfect. You can easily fill them 100% without issue.

http://www.schaefer-container-systems.c ... steel-keg/

PS: They have a US distributor. Mine come in a 20l size which is a drop-in replacement for the corny's.

At the moment I just push the yeast out. Takes a few go's. I figured it's much better to get the beer of the yeast eventually. So it's either filter, umdruecken or, just flush it out but that requires a full length tube.

I haven't decided yet what's best for me.

I know it kinda violates pure low O2 principle, but I need my Pils to be presentation-ready before natural process will allow, so the other day I did two things to get me there.
One, I replaced the stock dip tube with a cut one. I did it with gas going into the keg but with the PRV open (I tried it once with the PRV closed and was rewarded with a beer fountain). It may have introduced a small amount of O2,but I think if a slight overpressure condition is enough to keep chemical agents out of Abramstanks, it's good enough to keep outside air out of my keg.
Anyway, after that, and still with gas flowing, I opened the lid and added a gelatin clarifying dose (using preboiled water for the gelatin solution and very gently lowering the measuring cup into the beer so as to not "pour" it through free air).
Then I cold crashed it.
I'll see tonight (48 hours later) what effect this two-pronged approach had.