Starter = ? Looks Like Curdled Milk ?

Hey All

Woke up this morning... and my starter on a stir plate looked like it had 'curdled' so to speak.

Looks a little like the hot/cold break material but only much more solid (and it is not the hot/cold break - its only a 1L starter and it wasnt there from 4pm (when I made it) until 10pm last night)

Maybe big globs of yeast? I am just used to my starters looking just plain brownish with bubbles floating up and a whirlpool in the center.

Any ideas on this?

I see you have an ESB as your "On Deck" so I'm guessing that's just English yeast doing what they do and flocculating like crazy.

Yeah, assuming it is wlp002 or similar yeast, that is normal. This from WhiteLabs website concerning WLP002:

Is WLP002 English Ale supposed to be grainy? I got the yeast out of the cooler and shook it up as I normally do, and it appeared to be coagulated. I've never used this strain of yeast before -- is this normal?

Yes, the yeast often looks coagulated - that is the high flocculation characteristic of this yeast. You will see a similar look with our other English Style strains as well. You have to give it lots of aeration at the beginning. Shake the carboy every 15-30 minutes for the first few hours after pitching. Because the yeast is so flocculent, it gets easily caught in the trub and hops.

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Some of the English strains look like cottage cheese. Very clumpy.

Chunky cheese.

Have an English IPA on tap using this yeast (cake from previous batch) and I love the fruitiness.

WLP002 is a Chunky Monkey all is good!

Thanks all!

I noticed this with my starter while using the Yorkshire Square yeast. Looked curdled

I just had the same with WLP007. Pretty gross looking after it had cold crashed, but it looked pretty neat while on the stir plate!

This is slightly off topic, but specific to 002. How does one avoid getting the clumps into the finished product? I've let it settle, cooled it down, racked to bottling bucket, let that sit for a bit and still end up with some floaties in some of the bottles. Love the yeast, but it's a tricky one.

HolyKrausenBatman said:

This is slightly off topic, but specific to 002. How does one avoid getting the clumps into the finished product? I've let it settle, cooled it down, racked to bottling bucket, let that sit for a bit and still end up with some floaties in some of the bottles. Love the yeast, but it's a tricky one.

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Wait longer, crash it colder or use a fining agent.

What 1968 looks like on the stir plate

MC

Misplaced_Canuck said:

What 1968 looks like on the stir plate

MC

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Yep. That's pretty much how it looked. First time I have seen that

I had the same question this morning. Harvested from my conical last night and wanted to build up a big starter for my next up smoked porter. First time using a stir plate and it looks like cottage cheese swirling today!