Belgian yeast starter smells bad

[jdudek]

Hi all,

I made 1L starter out of 1 month old (manufacture date 3/5/2020) pack of Imperial Belgian triple double. I boiled the wort, sanitized everything, the usual dance... Starter went on a stir plate for about 24 hours.

The starter was pretty active, lots of foam, lots of yeast at the bottom of the container.

I stuck it in the fridge earlier today, and i just took it out to have a look. It smells pretty bad. I've never had a starter smell like this before, and i've made many of them, though never with yeast from Imperial. I'm pretty sure the packaged yeast itself was fine, it smelled normal.

it also has a weird looking soapy foammy head that does not seem to subside. Starters i've made in the past had just a bit of krausen that quickly disappeared after the starter was stored in the fridge. This is just sitting there, jiggling and looking gross

I called the brew shop and described this as best i could over the phone, the fella did not seem concerned about this at all... he said to go for it and he thinks weird smell and lots of foam is nothing to worry about.

Looking for some more opinions out here... sine pics attached.

thanks!
-Jakub

 

[bkboiler]

Hrmm...that looks kinda normal. Any different descriptors of the smell?

The best way I've read here for people kettle souring is the mash smelling like "satan's anus". Ha!

 

[jdudek]

well my first reaction was "this smells like ass"...

I read somewhere that's not really possible for an infection to happen this quickly (24 hours)... it would apparently take a lot more time to get a properly bad smelling infection.

still though... my mother in law had a whiff and she ran away... the rest of the family does not want to try

 

[bkboiler]

Sucks but I'd tend to agree with them. Before dumping I'd google that strain to see if anybody else has experienced this. Some strains just make the rhino farts smell more pronounced than others.

 

[jekeane]

I made a starter of two older packs of this yeast strain that we had in the cooler at work. It smelled bad and I dumped it. Could be that it stink on the stir plate I have had a few strains that were unpleasant smelling starters. I however remember this particular stain smelling rotten when i dumped it.

 

[RPh_Guy]

well my first reaction was "this smells like ass"...

Sulfurous like rotten eggs or farts?

 

[bracconiere]

Sulfurous like rotten eggs or farts?

no where else on the internet can i come to start laughing at 2am, about what i think was a serious question, about the finer details of something like that.....

 

[RPh_Guy]

It was a serious question. Hydrogen sulfide has a distinct aroma.

https://***************.com/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide

 

[bracconiere]

damn, lol, now you're seriously explaining the details....and i got **** for posting a picture of reusable toilet paper.......


to be useful, i should say does lighting a match help? but you'd have to fill in the blanks


edit: i'm slowly getting back to my senses....wouldn't there be a away to let it gas off? i know i get sulphur smells from my cider but it goes away with time....

 

[jdudek]

well after 24h in the fridge, the smell had subsided considerably. I pitched it... just took a sample on 4th day of fermentation, and it is A-OK