Sour tasting beer from starter wort

[SenorWanderer]

I have a habit of tasting the beer from a starter and today it tastes a little funky, but I'm not positive that it's a problem, so I need some help. I made the starter of 1056 on tuesday for the IIPA I brewed today. The wort that I used is from a big batch of starter wort that I made and canned in my pressure cooker a couple weeks ago. This is the first batch of starter wort that i've made from a mash. I didn't hop it, but I did boil it for about 45 minutes. I filled a spare carboy with the wort and went on to brew the beer I was brewing that day. The carboy of starter wort sat on my kitchen counter staring me in the face everyday for about 10 days!! I simply didn't have time to undertake a canning session so I kept putting it off. Once I got around to canning it it smelled a little funky, so I boiled it for another 30-40 minutes before canning at 10psi for 45 minutes. I guess my question is do you think that the combined re-boil and autoclaving killed all the bugs that had gotten going? Is the spoiled taste left over from what they accomplished when they had a chance? If the yeast is safe to pitch will those flavors carry over?

I have 6g of a delicious (so far) IIPA at pitch temp ready to go. do I pitch my starter yeast or do I wait for the LHBS to open tomorrow and pitch the required amount of smack packs??? I've decanted all the beer from the starter that I can.

TIA

 

[android]

you probably killed whatever was causing the funk, but the taste will probably still be there. how big is the starter? how does the resulting starter smell? i wouldn't put much weight on how a starter tastes if you're tasting it after it's run its course. it will be oxidized and probably not that good. but if it does smell pretty bad, i don't think I'd pitch it, but that's just me. on the other hand, if the starter is less than 2L (not likely for a IIPA), you might not get enough carry over from the starter to worry about it. if your sanitation was sound, you could just crash cool the starter and pitch only yeast in another 24-48 hrs... or just get some packs as you suggested.

 

[SenorWanderer]

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and pitched it. The starter was 2 Wyeast packs in a 2 quart starter (per Mr. Malty pitch rate calc). I tasted it a bunch more and I'm pretty confident that whatever was growing in there at first was gone. The sourness was pretty pronounced at first for starter beer but once I settled down it wasn't any worse then when I tasted it before I canned it. I'll report back on the fermentation in the next few days.