Yeast Visual ID/sniff test

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cladinshadows

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Long story short, I didn't get to do my starters last night for this weekend's two batches (a bavarian hefeweizen and a pale ale. I'm using WLP300 for the BH and WLP002 for the pale) so I thought "no big deal I'll just leave them in the iodophor until tomorrow morning, no problem."

Wrong.

The labels came right off the white labs vials and now I have two unlabeled vials of yeast waiting for something to eat. But, they do look significantly different from one another. One is very creamy off-white and all of the yeast appears to be in solution. The other has the yeast sitting at the bottom and clear liquid on top (flocculated or something), the yeast is slightly darker in color.

I've used WLP002 before and I'm pretty sure it's the one where the yeast is separated.

First of all, does anybody agree that it's probably the WLP002 that's separated, rather than the WLP300? Secondly, if I can't figure it out by just looking at them in the vial, what about after the starter gets going? I've heard that hefe's can be pretty stinky. Could I figure it out that way?

Thanks for helping!
 
clad,
If you normally crash cool before you pitch, sample some of the starter, and you should definitely be able to tell.
The banana should be clearly different between 002 and 300.
As it stands, however, you can feel relatively confident that the one with the nice packed yeast is 002.
 
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