Final PH of yeast starter. Infected?

[HotCheese]

I put my wlp002 starter on the stir plate yesterday. I checked the starter after about 8 hours and it looked pretty cloudy indicating some growth activity but it seemed odd there wasn't much of a krausen or foaming in the starter that is usually there when its on the stir plate. I decided to pitch the starter this morning. It smelled fruity and a bit sour/tart. I decided to keep just enough slurry behind to check the ph of it. My ph meter indicated the slurry was at 3.31 room temp. That seems incredibly low for a final ph. So my question is, did I just pitch a buttload of lactobacteria into my fresh wort?

 

[afr0byte]

Assuming your meter was calibrated properly...probably lacto or similar, yeah

 

[HotCheese]

Assuming your meter was calibrated properly...probably lacto or similar, yeah

It is. Dammnit, that's what I feared.

 

[HotCheese]

Actually I was wrong, the starter turned out to be fine and not infected. I reached out to White Labs and also Wyeast with the same email expecting differing opinions. Turns out they replied with the same response. It is not uncommon for high acid producing yeast strains especially English yeast to drive the PH down in a starter because of the massive growth rate. They said too only worry if the ph is below 3 and/or the yeast aroma is not normal for the specific yeast type.

Just didn't want to lead anyone else astray.

 

[afr0byte]

Actually I was wrong, the starter turned out to be fine and not infected. I reached out to White Labs and also Wyeast with the same email expecting differing opinions. Turns out they replied with the same response. It is not uncommon for high acid producing yeast strains especially English yeast to drive the PH down in a starter because of the massive growth rate. They said too only worry if the ph is below 3 and/or the yeast aroma is not normal for the specific yeast type.

Just didn't want to lead anyone else astray.

Cool!