Diagnosis please, no idea here.

I have a consistent and possible infection issue going on... the smell is like a German wheat beer. Hard to describe otherwise, perhaps 'estery' but not in a good way.

The first beer this occurred was with a Kolsch using Wyeast 2565 (starter made). Very odd flavor, this was bottled, partial mash.

The next beer I made was a ESB, kegged, no off flavor, was amazing, extract kit.

Today's issue is with a starter for a Bavarian Dunkel. It smells like the kolsch, a weird, wheat beer type smell. I used the same DME for both the Kolch and this starter. The DME I am using is kind of old, but has been in vacuum packaging.

Any and all help is appreciated!! Thanks.

Any homebrewers out there!!

TTT

You didn't buy wheat DME on accident?

i checked that, would be funny though and certainly not impossible (knowing me).

can DME go bad?

What temperature are you fermenting at?

The starter if fermenting at 68F. I will add, it didn't start smelling "estery" until I pitched my 1L into a 4L starter.

What yeast are you using for the dunkel starter? You have to remember that with starters they won't always smell perfect because you are severely overpitching.... and as long as the smell doesn't make you want to vomit it probably isn't infected.

On the Kolsch... those yeasts are notoriously slow to flocc out and it could have just been yeast in suspension that was giving it the aroma. How long after bottling/kegging were you noticing the off flavor?

the dunkel is wyeast 2206, Bavarian Lager

The smack pack took 48 hours to show life. THe 1L starter took about the same (but smelled like yeast), but the 4L took 24 hours to krausen, but smells funky. Does diacetyl have a smell, could it be that?

You know, i do not want to pitch a bad yeast over 6 bucks and a week to process! Thanks again.

Do you pitch your yeast into your starters in the same spot each time? You could have a wild yeast problem. A friend of mine had some serious contamination issues over several batches - we eventually traced the point of contamination to the kitchen - he was making his starters and pitching yeast into them in the same space his wife made the sourdough bread starters. He has since moved room and his issue went away.

Try a new space to make starters and pitch in. It may clear up.