Yeast conundrum...

Ok - the backdrop:

I'm brewing an Allagash Belgian Tripel clone with a pretty simple grain bill but a pretty high gravity: 1080+ OG probably. Then I want to age it in a 5 gallon oak barrel I bought recently just for this brew. With a brew that big I naturally do a yeast starter with WLP500 to get to my target cell count at pitching. I checked on it today and I noticed that I must have burned the DME when I made the starter on the stove. I then grew my yeast on top of that and now I'm 1 day away from brew day (Which I technically could postpone but don't want to really.)

So my question is...assuming this is burnt DME on the bottom of my starter flask and not an infection of some kind could I pitch it? Would the burnt DME add any flavors to the yeast and therefore perhaps the finished brew? I do also have some S-33 yeast I keep in the fridge for just such occasions but I really like the WLP500.

 

Cold-crash your starter, decant most of the liquid (leave enough to turn the cake into a pourable slurry) and unless you're doing a 1 gallon batch you'll be unlikely to notice any "toasty" characters - especially once you've aged it in that barrel for as long as planned...

Cheers!

 

And this is good advice even when you don't burn your starter wort. No reason to pitch unnecessary quantities of subpar beer into what you're hoping will become excellent beer!

 

Yeah, you are fine, just decant as much of the beer off as possible.

 

Thank you gents; you have confirmed my "gut feel". I will pitch it as-is and post to this thread to let you know how it turns out. As an an aside, I felt like even with the potential "toasty" flavors of burnt DME in my yeast starter that it might play well in the oak barrel over time to mellow that out a bit if it was overwhelming.

 

For sure was burnt DME, the starter wort smelled burnt. I threw away my starter flask and ordered another one. That stuff won't come off. Decanted almost all of it and pitched it.

 

Fermentation began in ~5hours, maybe 6. Smells fine. I kind of go with my nose in the beginning of a fermentation to see if there are any obvious problems. For example in one of my "experiment" batches I used the Fermentis Abbaye dry yeast. Smelled horrible, TONS of sulfur during the primary fermentation. Eventually became dumper-brau since the smell would not go away...

Anyway, learned from that to smell my primary fermentation as an early indicator and this one smells good.

Thanks again to those who replied!

 

what do you mean by it never went away? like even after you bottled and aged it? cause some yeasts will throw off some funky aromas during fermentation. it doesn't necessarily mean something's wrong. the absolute funkiest i have personally smelled was a witbier yeast. i was certain i had some kind of infection with that pungent aroma. but the beer was just fine.

 

After primary fermentation I aged it in secondary (bright tank) for 2 weeks then went to the keg. It never made it to the bottle and it smelled like rotten eggs from start to finish. Maybe with the keg chilling it made it such that the yeast couldn't clean up after themselves. That one was high ABV and probably could have done well with a month or more bottle aging but I wasn't that patient apparently.

 

the cleaning up phase is something that people on here often get highly confused with conditioning. once the beer has reached FG, the yeast start cleaning up. it's not like they're doing it intentionally or anything, thinking, "ok, i made quite a mess here, i better clean some of this **** up." they're doing it because there's no more sugar and they're trying to take up some nutrients to store away before they go into hibernation. this lasts for about 2 days after FG is reached. after that, the little guys are done cleaning up. and that's when the conditioning phase starts.

conditioning is simply letting the beer mature, and allowing the dormant yeast and other heavier proteins and particles to drop out of suspension. this clearing process is what helps the beer become more mature, because those suspended particles add a bit of flavor, and take away from the flavor of the malt and hops. you can speed up the conditioning time by dropping the temps, either cold-conditioning or lagering.

either way, it seems like your beer wasn't going to shake the rotten eggs.

 

Couple good nuggets there for me, thanks! I didn't know about the timelines for the yeast to mop up all the by-products of their wort feast. I'll digest that and maybe adjust my process in the future.

As for the yeast being good house-guests and cleaning up after themselves, it reminds me of how I think of myself as a brewer and the part that yeast plays in a good beer. I'm nothing more than a yeast farmer at the end of the day and my "herd" is the yeast. I will feed them on the best barley and water I can find and shield them with hops, so that at the end of the day my herd is healthy, happy, and free of unnatural by-products...

 

yeah pretty much. some adages can get old quick, but one that holds true is: we don't make beer, we make wort, and the yeast make the beer. if we keep them healthy and happy, they'll reward us with a good final product.

 

So say-eth the yeast...