Wyeast belgian wit....infection?

[rdbrett]

Made a starter tonite about 6pm. 1L. Making a blue moon clone. At 10 pm my stirplate was not stirring, had to crank it up. Some foam on top. Not a very good smell in my opinion coming from it. Ive inly done a handful of liquid starters. Is it safe to say if it doesnt smell like something you'd drink, its probably not good? Not gonna use it if I'm not sure. It does not smell good. Can an infection happen that fast?

 

[dogbar]

Starters always smell bad. If you don't have other reasons to believe it's infected, it's almost certainly not. Definitely nothing grows _that_ fast.

 

[rdbrett]

Thats a relief! Feel like I sanitized everything. I've a few, dont recall the ilothers smelling like this. But, I'm a rookie.

 

[dogbar]

That yeast can be a little sulfur-y. It will age out.

 

[lumpher]

don't dump a starter just because it smells bad, especially belgians, lagers, bocks,... ok, everything. there's a reason we pour off the beer from the cake with the starter...

 

[bratrules]

Also the reason it smells bad is that fermenting your starter at a higher temp than you would ferment your beer. So its throw off all kinds of odd smells and flavors as well. But its no big deal!! Just cold crash your start and decant.

 

[rdbrett]

I was planning to brew today. But may not be able to. It wont hurt it to be in fridge until Friday will it?

 

[bratrules]

I was planning to brew today. But may not be able to. It wont hurt it to be in fridge until Friday will it?

Not at all!!