Stir plate gone wild

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I made a starter using WPL001. Mr Malty said 1.5 liters for Pliney the Elder clone. I made a 2.5 liter starter to have some left over for other uses. The photo is what my starter looked like in about 36 hours. It did not continue "boiling over" after the initial time. A day later I pitched 1.5 liters of this starter into my Pliney, then stoppered the remaining and put in the fridge. The neck had a thick creamy substance in the neck I had to spoon out to get to the wort.

Why did this happen?
I guess I will find out if it is okay when I sample the Pliney.
I am planning on stepping up the 1 liter fridge to pitch a 10 gallon of Brown Ale. Should I trust this starter?

yeast_blow-up-1.jpg
 
Looks like fermentation to me :p My guess is you didn't have enough headspace in there and it bubbled up and blew out. No problem.
 
Thanks,
I will step this up to use on the next one.

I can't help but thinking of the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Its actually the corollary: doing the same thing over and over and really getting different results. In the few times I have used the stir plate the results have actually looked different but have all worked well once hitting the fermenter.
 
I too just did about a 2000ml WLP001 starter on a stirplate with the same results. I have done at least a half dozen other starters on the plate without the overflow. Good news is that I pitched it into the Evil Twin batch and took right off....actually volcano'd outta my carboy....that yeast is a beast!
I'll add pics just cause I like posting them :mug:
Starter Volcano
Beer113-1.jpg
Carboy Volcano
beer2003.jpg
 
Starter blowoff is a normal thing for me. Makes a nice mess to cleanup. Today's stirplate stickiness was sponsored by WLP001. It blew off yesterday. At least I know the ferment will be nice and vigorous!
 
Newbeerguy - I hope you later used a blow off tube on that carboy. Montanaandy

Yes I sure had to. After I cleaned that mess up, and boy did it really make a mess. That pic was before I went to work, I didn't have time to swap it out, so I just cleaned out the airlock and replaced the star san in it. When I got back home from work it was just all over the place. I think I was a few minutes away from the airlock actually blowing off the carboy, it was so gunked up that when I pulled it out, I heard a nice hssssssss. Pressure was starting to build up. Good times :mug:
 
"I didn't have time to swap it out, so I just cleaned out the airlock and replaced the star san in it. "

So it sounds like you didn't actually use a blow off tube but cleaned out the airlock + trub that was clogging the CO2 from escpaing (the hiss when you removed the airlock). All you need to do is remove the interior of the airlock (plastic inner piece + plastic cap) and place a tube over the inner post inside the airlock that the plastic inner piece was placed over). Have the tube running to a growler or milk jug of star san solution and no more mess (or at least mess contained in the jug). Montanaandy
 
"I didn't have time to swap it out, so I just cleaned out the airlock and replaced the star san in it. "

So it sounds like you didn't actually use a blow off tube but cleaned out the airlock + trub that was clogging the CO2 from escpaing (the hiss when you removed the airlock). All you need to do is remove the interior of the airlock (plastic inner piece + plastic cap) and place a tube over the inner post inside the airlock that the plastic inner piece was placed over). Have the tube running to a growler or milk jug of star san solution and no more mess (or at least mess contained in the jug). Montanaandy

Ahh sorry I wasn't clear in my response. After I got home from work I switched to a blowoff tube :mug:
 
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