What does good yeast smell like?

[jzamora3]

I'm in the process of trying to revive a package of expired WYeast 1450 and have my first mini starter going. It's about 9 months since it was packaged and just wondering what to look for as far as the smell. It's mildy sour but not bad at all when I smell into the Erlenmeyer flask. It's been on the stir plate for 24 hours at a 1.022 .8L starter. Any idea what it should smell like? I know yeast isn't always the best smelling part of brewing

Cheers and thanks in advance!

 

[flugelizor]

To answer your question, it should smell more like beer. than plain wort.
Yest itself has a distinct smell that is hard to describe. But when it is beginning to ferment in wort, it smells like a rich fruity ESB.

After 24 hours on the stir plate, yeast is probably the only thing that would have had time to take hold, so if it's cloudy, you probably have yeast there.
You might want to shut down the stir, put an air lock and see if you have bubbles.
Best of luck.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Smells like Sourdough bread

I revived 3 year old yeast packs in a starter with no problem.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

It smells yeasty, sorry... I had one smack pack of Hefe yeast that had expired only a few months, but was shipped and ice pack was melted it was stinky, but not yeasty, but was viable and made a good beer. I'd say if it isn't rotten smelling you can probably work with it, and a starter is definitely a good idea.