Is my lacto starter OK or should I dump it?

[Bisco_Ben]

So I recently bought the yeast bay lactobacillus blend vial and decided to make a starter to grow the culture and collect some in a jar for future batches. I made a 1.8L starter in a flask with foam stopper and followed my procedure for any other yeast starter, except I only turned on the stir bar for a few seconds here and there to rouse the bacteria. I let it sit for about a week occasionally rousing once or twice a day. I then turned the stir bar on for a few minutes to mix everything and poured about 500ml off into a sanitized mason jar for future use, which has worked for me before. I noticed however as I was mixing and pouring the starter that 1: there was a very small ring of krausen like foam at the rim of the surface ONLY when the stir bar was running at full blast for a while, NOT AT ALL during the week of growth or when the stirring stopped, and 2: the starter smelled bad like a sour mash possibly gone wrong. Is it possible that the wort went bad in a way but the bacteria will be good to use? Just ultimately curious if I should dump this thing and cut my losses or give it a whirl and see what happens. I plan to take gravity and pH readings of the decanted wort once I can do so...

 

[doomy86]

The chance is very small to get something good out of it if it already smells bad. Dump it

 

[BWE]

So I recently bought the yeast bay lactobacillus blend vial and decided to make a starter to grow the culture and collect some in a jar for future batches. I made a 1.8L starter in a flask with foam stopper and followed my procedure for any other yeast starter, except I only turned on the stir bar for a few seconds here and there to rouse the bacteria. I let it sit for about a week occasionally rousing once or twice a day. I then turned the stir bar on for a few minutes to mix everything and poured about 500ml off into a sanitized mason jar for future use, which has worked for me before. I noticed however as I was mixing and pouring the starter that 1: there was a very small ring of krausen like foam at the rim of the surface ONLY when the stir bar was running at full blast for a while, NOT AT ALL during the week of growth or when the stirring stopped, and 2: the starter smelled bad like a sour mash possibly gone wrong. Is it possible that the wort went bad in a way but the bacteria will be good to use? Just ultimately curious if I should dump this thing and cut my losses or give it a whirl and see what happens. I plan to take gravity and pH readings of the decanted wort once I can do so...

http://draftmag.com/brettanomyces-lactobacillus-pediococcus-beer/

Can't say I've made any beer with that... But isn't lactobacillus supposed to smell sour?? There are quite a few yeast styles that smell terrible while fermenting.