Belgian Smell from Cream Ale?

[Natdavis777]

So I brewed a Cream Ale this past weekend and last night while changing frozen water bottles out, I gave the airlock a sniff and it smelt estery and Belgian-esque...

Im pretty good with sanitation. When my carboys are not in use, I keep them full with a star san solution. I use a pump and recirc the boiling wort for the last 5 min of the boil and keep my plate chiller submerged in a bucket of star san solution until I am ready to cool and transfer.

I pitched safale -05 later in the evening when I got the temp down to 66F. I just moved so right now I am using a big rubbermaid bucket with water and changing out frozen water bottles. Ive done some research and have seen where people say they get some esters at lower temps with safale-05... I can see this from higher temps, but not lower. Either way, I am stumped. We will see how it turns out.

Any input?

 

[CadillacAndy]

This has happened to me before. I brewed a cream ale with us-05 basically as a big yeast starter and it had a medium level of Belgian style phenolic peppery character. I repitched yeast from this batch and it was only like this with this beer. It was a new pack that I rehydrated too. Mine was probably not sanitation related because the next generation was fine. Most likely not enough cells and the yeast were stressed. Possibly under pitched. Maybe an old pack?

 

[Natdavis777]

Possibly. Fermentation took off pretty fast and I rehydrated as well. The only other thing I can think of is that the LHBS gave me the safale belgian strain that comes in a pink pack, but I think that is highly unlikely...