Very interesting. Last Friday I pulled my WB-06 from the fridge and decanted the 'beer' off it to make a fresh starter for the Saturday batch ("X" aka Patersbier aka Westmalle Extra).
The problem was I intended to grab the 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast from the fridge (saved the same way as the WB-06, from a split starter, swirl the starter @ pitching time, save a tube's worth on reserve in the fridge, pitch the rest of the starter in the 6 gallons of wort).
So I made ANOTHER starter for the Trappist I needed. That stuff stinks. I LOVED the beer it makes, but I thought it might have gone rotten my reserve smelled so bad, (possible autolysis) and that was when it was fresh in March! now it did not any smell better - nor worse. However, I recalled the original starter taking 3 days, and stinking till it went off, then it was happy fresh bread smells. Last weekend I was only giving it about 35 hours, and the WB-06 was krausening away smelling fantastic while the 3787 was not getting on with it & stunk in it's stinky cycle. So I pitched all but a split of the 3787, and I did the opposite with the WB-06. I saved MOST of the WB-06, and pitched a bit of that into the X wort. We'll see how it turns out. Happy to report that the blowoff bottle emits the pleasing banana-ish happy aromas that put one at ease, & lends great hope for another fine batch of beer.
Funny thing about that WB-06 - the first batch I did with it kinda stunk along the way, but the end product as very nice! The yeast reserve from that smelled fantastic & reminded me a lot of that beer, and now this batch smells great as well. The first batch was a little different though, more of a straight American Wheat Beer.
