I made a 1L starter with WLP002 on Wednesday. I was thinking of brewing on Friday, but on Friday morning I tried the starter, it had unpleasant smell, perhaps bit like bad eggs. I tasted it and, well it is not vinegar, rather taste of fermented starter. My wife agrees it is not vinegar, she says the taste is more like ice cream cones or wafers. There is a nice white creamy layer of yeast on the bottom. I made the starter in the exactly same way I made WLP007 a week before and other starter a month ago. Lots of shaking to areate when adding yeast from the vial, then a bit of shaking during the first and second day. Everything cleaned, sanitized, medical alcohol used for the vial and hands. No stir plate. WLP007 had normal yeast smell, nothing unpleasant.
Come to think of it, there was one difference, I used bottled water this time (boiled obviously).
My question is - are such bad smells possible in WLP002 or should I pour the starter down the drain?
WLP002 starter smell question
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Re: WLP002 starter smell question
Notsure, i made up a starter of WLP002 which was 5 months out of date (the company say you can go 4 months) and it turned out fine and no odd smells. It didn't take off like a rocket but fermented OK and set like cement in the bottom of the fermenter when it had finished.
Re: WLP002 starter smell question
Bit of an update. The foul smell in the starter did not go away, so what I did I split the brew into two fermenters, one with the suspect starter, the other one with other yeast. The reason was if the starter was dodgy, then only half of the batch would be lost.
I placed the starter vessel in the fridge for two days, took it out on the brewday several hours before pitching, decanted it, poured some fresh wort on the yeast half an hour before pitching and pitched it to 9 litres of fresh wort (London Pride clone).
The smell during fermentation was okay, krausen as expected. Today is day 18, I took a gravity reading, approx. 1.014.
Now the taste and smell. OH - MY - GOD. It is amazing. This was my 13th brew and boy, talk about a lucky number. An excellent brew.
As a side note, this is another beer brewed with treated water according to Murphy's recommendations. Finally astringency is a thing of the past!
I placed the starter vessel in the fridge for two days, took it out on the brewday several hours before pitching, decanted it, poured some fresh wort on the yeast half an hour before pitching and pitched it to 9 litres of fresh wort (London Pride clone).
The smell during fermentation was okay, krausen as expected. Today is day 18, I took a gravity reading, approx. 1.014.
Now the taste and smell. OH - MY - GOD. It is amazing. This was my 13th brew and boy, talk about a lucky number. An excellent brew.
As a side note, this is another beer brewed with treated water according to Murphy's recommendations. Finally astringency is a thing of the past!