Bad smell in my starter

I just pitched a starter made with White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen, and after I did, I smelled the jar I'd had it in. It had a funky/bad smell to it, which kinda concerned me. The yeast is about three months past its "best by" date, and I'm worried it might be dead.

On the other hand, I've never used this variety before, and in fact, I've never used a wheat beer yeast before, so maybe the weird smell was just a normal part of the fermentation, like a sulphur smell type event. If anyone has an experience using this yeast, I'd appreciate comments.

I thought those yeasties kind of had a weird smell by their nature. Not sure though, I've never brewed a hefe.


Dan

Can you be more specific on the smell?

That yeast does stink though. Sulphury, and just...well...wierd.

I'd step it up again before oyu use it to make sure the yeast are healthy.....

Hehe, oops, I meant that I pitched the starter into my wort, not that I'd just made the starter. It had been sitting in the kitchen for two days. It looked like there was a little action yesterday, so I think it's probably doing something. Mainly I was curious if people had used and smelled it before.

As for the smell, I just went and took a few more whiffs of the jar (yum) and it's almost like a dirty diaper smell.

Like Dude said, that yeast is funky. I wouldn't worry about the date since you made a starter.

IME active yeast is healthy yeast. If it's bubbling I'd not worry about it.

Well crap. I pitched yeast into two batches yesterday. Got up this morning, the belgian ale is bubbling like gangbusters. Meanwhile, the hefeweizen yeast I pitched is totally silent. I'm a bit worried now, although I have not yet had a batch in which the yeast didn't work.

Give it another day Torchiest. The fastest I've ever seen a fermentation kick off was with my Chimay clone; took about 5 hrs. Belgian yeast is crazy. Also, Hefe and Kolsch yeast smell like farts, don't be alarmed, yet ;-)

Thanks for the support. I'm not QUITE freaking out yet, but I'm borderline. T+28hrs and nothing yet. I really want this one to come out well because it was my first partial mash, and it would be a damn shame if it didn't work out. I'll leave it be and see how it looks tonight after work. I'm glad it's outside, so once it kicks off, I won't have to smell that poo smell inside my apartment, at least.

Ugh. Now at T +39hrs and not a bit of activity. My longest lag ever was about 44hrs, I think, so I'm still kinda in the zone, but I'm not happy. Including the starter time, I'm up to 84hrs since the initial pitching. Bleah!

repitch, save yourself the anxiety

Yeah, if there's nothing happening in the next 6-8hrs, I'm going to take the vial and the receipt back to LHBS and get another one. They've said before they would replace for free any yeast that didn't work, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Alright, it's now been exactly two days since I pitched my starter, which had been sitting almost two more days before I pitched it. Almost four days total, and absolutely nothing. I'm going to get more yeast.