OK. Sanity check. I am currently in the process of building 2 starters from 2 separate cans of HT. My planned build up steps are 150ml>400ml>1L>1L>1.8L.
I got pure peach through step 1. But it could be because I poured ~100ml of dregs into 150ml of starter.
I stepped to 400ml last night. Today, when I smell the starter, I get a real light clove/pepper aroma that says Belgian to me. I will say that the upstairs room I have the starters in did get to around 77F ambient while I was at work yesterday. I've since turned the AC on in that part of the house to get the ambient under control.
I have gone over my sanitation regimen from each step and don't believe I missed a step that would have favored infection or wild yeast. I can detail my sanitation if it helps, but that's a lot of typing.
It sounds to me like I might have grown at a little warmer than optimum. I intend to wash the yeast with pressure canned distilled water when I am done as I have another beer on deck before I brew with the Conan and want to store my starter results as clean and cold as I can.
I guess what I am asking is, does the light pepper/clove I am getting sound like what some of you have seen? I am definitely willing to chalk it up to heat stress which I believe I can combat by decanting future steps and washing at the end.