Can you Brew It recipe for Flying Dog Raging *****

Pour some of the starter beer on top into a glass and taste it. It shouldn't smell or taste foul. I've never used WLP400, but her sister, WY3944 is very similar. It never smelled or tasted bad, and none of the sulphur Hefe yeast can throw. It is possible your 400 got infected or was mishandled at some point before you put it on the stir plate, but it is unlikely that happened during those last 24-36 hours. Infections incurred in starters usually manifest themselves later, after pitching.

I had a small reclaimed batch of 3944 Wit yeast that had grown a pellicle. It started to smell really bad after a few weeks so I tossed it.

IslandLizard said:

Pour some of the starter beer on top into a glass and taste it. It shouldn't smell or taste foul. I've never used WLP400, but her sister, WY3944 is very similar. It never smelled or tasted bad, and none of the sulphur Hefe yeast can throw. It is possible your 400 got infected or was mishandled at some point before you put it on the stir plate, but it is unlikely that happened during those last 24-36 hours. Infections incurred in starters usually manifest themselves later, after pitching.

I had a small reclaimed batch of 3944 Wit yeast that had grown a pellicle. It started to smell really bad after a few weeks so I tossed it.

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Thinking about this a little more...I forgot to mention that the starter smelled fine while on the plate. In fact, SWMBO said that it had a pleasant "baking bread" aroma and she usually bitches about the smell of yeast. It seems like this happened after putting it in the fridge.

Maybe the yeast didn't like going from room temperature to cold crash temps that quickly and expressed themselves a little bit...? It's a thought I had just now.

I will decant it tonight and see what it tastes like and report back.

I just decanted off a little bit of the starter liquid and it's actually sorta tasty, like I would expect a Wit to taste minus the low level of bittering. The starter definitely carries a sulfur aroma but I think it's just fine to pitch.

Island Lizard, you nailed this one! Thank you! I'm still humbled every time I brew something, I suspect that will never end.

I started drinking this beer last week. Overall, it's a pretty nice beer. I overshot OG by 15% and decided to just roll with it rather than dilute it. One week later I found out the scale at the LHBS was out of calibration, waaaaay out. I was a little concerned about the resulting underpitch but still ended up attenuating to 78%, right on target for WLP400. I did adjust the bittering on the fly.

I should point out a modification I made that personally I think is important. I dry hopped with 2 oz. of Amarillo @ 7% AA for 5 days at 67F. Regardless of what the CYBI recipe says, the kit that Flying Dog sells contains a packet of dry hop. As others have pointed out, I think it was missed in the interview with the brewer. Anyway, you have to be careful dry hopping with Amarillo because it can get a little funky but with my Amarillos coming in at 7% AA, I don't think 2 oz was too much here. Adjust according to your AA.

Also, it's important to note that this beer will benefit from a slightly higher level of carbonation. I originally shot for a standard 2.5 vol but the beer just didn't pop like Raging ***** does. I grabbed a 6 pack and about halfway through the first bottle it occurred to me what was missing, more gas. So, I took it to 2.7 vol and find that to be a nice target level.