Looks a little different

[brewprint]

This is a Wyeast American Ale starter. It's been going for around 12 hours. Does this look right to you with the big bubble and chalkiness?

View attachment 1419600367248.jpg

 

[watermelon83]

How much onion is in it? Kidding, of course. Yeah your good.

 

[flars]

Picture perfect starter.

 

[brewprint]

I use onions instead of dme. Works great!

I just wondered because this is yeast that I've been harvesting from starters and this is the 4th or 5th go around. They seem to be getting larger every time.

 

[brewprint]

Almost 12 hours later and looks just about the same. Stirbar still going. Am I just being paranoid or does this look like lacto or something?

 

[Hoppity]

Looks normal to me. Stir bar speed may be whipping up the froth, but color looks perfect.

 

[brewprint]

After about 36 hours it still looks the same. I've concluded that it's infected with something. I'm going to dump it and start over.

 

[ThunderpantsBrewing]

Everyone is telling you that you're good, but you're going to dump it? Why did you ask the question in the first place?

 

[flars]

Instead of dumping it, pour it off into a sanitized jar. Go to the thread for infections to see what an infected wort does look like. Don't seal the jar to tightly to allow CO2 to escape.

 

[ericbw]

Everyone is telling you that you're good, but you're going to dump it? Why did you ask the question in the first place?

And only because it's foamy?

 

[brewprint]

The foam never went down or diminished. This is normal? I've not seen this on any starters that I've made besides this one. It is about the 5th batch from harvesting from starters.

Here a picture of the last beer I brewed. It's a week into fermentation. This looks identical to the starter.

View attachment 1419806605182.jpg

 

[CB_in_Tokyo]

It looks fantastic!

 

[flars]

Put the lid back on. Take an SG reading in a week. Looks like an excellent fermentation. Even though it can look gross compared to cooking macaroni.

 

[ronjonacron]

Weird, whenever I make my starters with heavy onion i usually don't head.

 

[lowtones84]

That's a great krausen and nothing else. You're good man.

 

[ericbw]

What was the gravity of your starter?

 

[brewprint]

Never checked gravity.

I guess I should've left it. I did buy a brand new pack of the same yeast and made the identical size and it didn't have any of the foam.

 

[Yooper]

Never checked gravity.

I guess I should've left it. I did buy a brand new pack of the same yeast and made the identical size and it didn't have any of the foam.

Wyeast 1056 (assuming that is what you used) tends to not flocculate well at all, and sometimes has a krausen that persists even when fermentation ends. It's just a characteristic of the yeast strain, at least in my experience. A starter with 1056 just never seems to clear, and the beer from it is very slow to clear as well.

It all looked fine.

 

[brewprint]

Wyeast 1056 (assuming that is what you used) tends to not flocculate well at all, and sometimes has a krausen that persists even when fermentation ends. It's just a characteristic of the yeast strain, at least in my experience. A starter with 1056 just never seems to clear, and the beer from it is very slow to clear as well.

It all looked fine.

What alarms me is that I hadn't ever seen a starter that looked like that. Also during fermentation it just kept bubbling and bubbling leaving a layer of foam in the beer as well.

These are two things that the yeast hadn't done before which led me to it being infected.

 

[beergolf]

Looks perfectly normal.

Step Away from the Fermenter.......

Grab a beer and spend some time looking at this thread...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/pellicle-photo-collection-174033/

This will show you what some infections really look like. Some very good pics.

 

[pvault98]

My experience with repitched yeast is that by around the 3-4th generation, the starters tend to have a bigger krausen. The yeast seems to have found its sweet spot by around that generation in my opinion.

All of those pictures look perfectly normal and healthy, I don't see anything wrong with your yeast.

 

[brewprint]

My experience with repitched yeast is that by around the 3-4th generation, the starters tend to have a bigger krausen. The yeast seems to have found its sweet spot by around that generation in my opinion.

All of those pictures look perfectly normal and healthy, I don't see anything wrong with your yeast.

What do you mean found its sweet spot? As in no more reharvesting?

 

[pvault98]

No, just by around that generation it will tend take ferment the batch faster (few days or so), attenuate fully, drop clear and bright and just overall perform as well as you hope your yeast will. Keep harvesting as long as the yeast performs well and stays infection free, this is just around the time you should start to see a nice increase in performance and reliability.

 

[sky4meplease]

this is just around the time you should start to see a nice increase in performance and reliability.

So in people years that would be around 45 right?

 

[pvault98]

So in people years that would be around 45 right?

I sure hope that is the case because I turned 35 this year and everything aches a lot more.

 

[brewprint]

Well I wish I wouldn't have dumped it. I truly thought that it was infected regardless of what everyone said. I've had large krausen in starters before but it always receded.

Thanks for all the input. Lesson learned.

 

[sky4meplease]

It's ok man.
Bow your head, say a few nice words, have a homebrew in their name and move on.
We are all guilty of killing healthy yeast at some point.