Wlp007 gone bad?

[Cowman]

Evening all and a belated merry Christmas. Ive recently gone into liquid yeast and used some WLP 004 Irish ale yeast to do 4 small batches at once but there was fermenting problems ending with it going vinegary. https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/fermenting-and-oxidisation.84722/ .Now I've brewed 2 small batches and have got the yeast as a starter. WLP 007 yeast is now being used. The starter tastes a bit cidery and smells a bit vinegary. When I poured it into the starter it was very thick like a stodgey custard texture. It's been going for about 18hrs now and is all packed at the bottom and when stored up it all settles within about 10 seconds. I was wondering what I'm doing wrong. I've never had any problems with yeast before the liquid yeast?

 

[user 18729]

Evening all and a belated merry Christmas. Ive recently gone into liquid yeast and used some WLP 004 Irish ale yeast to do 4 small batches at once but there was fermenting problems ending with it going vinegary. https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/fermenting-and-oxidisation.84722/ .Now I've brewed 2 small batches and have got the yeast as a starter. WLP 007 yeast is now being used. The starter tastes a bit cidery and smells a bit vinegary. When I poured it into the starter it was very thick like a stodgey custard texture. It's been going for about 18hrs now and is all packed at the bottom and when stored up it all settles within about 10 seconds. I was wondering what I'm doing wrong. I've never had any problems with yeast before the liquid yeast?

Sorry to hear you are having problems with your starter. The chances of contamination from the yeast lab is very very small so unfortunately you need to look at your sanitation and general processes. Temperature, DME gravity, sanitizer, age of liquid yeast, ect.

 

[Cowman]

I use star San on everything and the yeast is in date. Should the yeast be clumpy coming out the packet?

 

[user 18729]

I use star San on everything and the yeast is in date. Should the yeast be clumpy coming out the packet?

It will clump together. Did you give it a good shake before opening?

 

[Cowman]

No I didn't. So I should chuck it and start over?

 

[user 18729]

No I didn't. So I should chuck it and start over?

The thing is a starter can taste a little off if the yeast was stressed (which generally it will be as we tend to grow a starter at a warm temperature to speed the process up). I’ll be honest i don’t taste the wort from mine at all for this reason- if there was a healthy fermentation and I sanitised everything correctly then I have faith and pitch it. I’ve not had a problem yet and touch wood I won’t. That said I haven’t tasted your starter, if it was pure cider/vinegar then that doesn’t sound good to me. Hopefully someone else can lend some advice

 

[Cowman]

Its only a bit cidery. Cheers mate

 

[BeerCat]

Did you use un hopped wort? The wort from starers can taste weird. I tend to look out for tcp/ medicinal flavours when tasting. Even cidery can be normal so i wouldn't worry as its kind of a hard thing to screw up.

 

[Cowman]

I just used sugar water. I'll put it in and see what happens. Cheers both

 

[JonBrew]

I just used sugar water. I'll put it in and see what happens. Cheers both

That'll be why it smells/tastes like cider vinegar. When making a starter you should always use malt extract in water made up to a SG of 1035-40. Sugar water will be setting the yeast up for a fall.

 

[BeerCat]

That'll be why it smells/tastes like cider vinegar. When making a starter you should always use malt extract in water made up to a SG of 1035-40. Sugar water will be setting the yeast up for a fall.

I second that.

 

[Cowman]

I've ran out of DME and haven't had a chance to replace it but I have used the sugar with dry yeast starters no problem before so is the liquid yeast more sensitive that way?

 

[user 18729]

There’s a multitude of reasons not to use sugar for a starter. It will stress out your yeast and then when presented with more complex sugar molecules (ie your wort) it will likely crash out.

 

[Drunkula]

is the liquid yeast more sensitive that way?

No. The sugar has been detrimental even to the dry yeast. When people use sugar water to rehydrate they've completely negated the point of hydrating in water in the first place. It's like being woken up by someone forcing doughnuts in your mouth, sometimes you're going to choke, sometimes to death.

Brulosophy did a dextrose vs wort starter experiment. The sugar starter took 5 days compared to 2 to brew out, then sugar starter beer took 23 days to brew out, compared to 11 days for the wort starter. And extra 15 days total... plenty of time to get some malt from somewhere.

I did a sugar starter early doors before I knew about any of this and it stunk, really stunk of eggs and I slung it in a hedge.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

When I poured it into the starter it was very thick like a stodgey custard texture.

I've not used WLP007 myself but some strains "are just like that", particularly ones that originated in British breweries that obviously wanted something that would drop clear in cask ASAP. Other strains are much fluffier.

In general starters for dry strains are counter-productive as it means you have to oxygenate the final wort as though it was a liquid strain, whereas dry strains don't normally need much oxygenation.

 

[Cowman]

Well I've put the yeast in last night and looks to be going well touch wood. I shall get some DME for the future. Thanks for your inputs guys and happy new year