Yeast Washing/Starter Tests vs Infections

[Darken99]

I am doing some testing with washing and making a yeast starter. I am wondering if I make a starter 2 days before I intend to pitch, that there would be sufficient time for an infection to show up before I pitch. I am practicing good cleaning practices and not expecting to have infections but just interested to know if they would be seen before I pitch.

 

[dinnerstick]

tough question, if you had a huge wild yeast infection i would expect that you'd see totally different behavior of your starter. for example if a highly flocculent yeast remains super cloudy for days after the starter is done. on the other hand a few million cells of brett are probably not going to make themselves known until way late in the game. a big lacto infection should be pretty easy to spot by smell and taste i would think. this is all conjecture rather than fact.

 

[WSJ]

I had to wait about 36 hours for my starter to show any life. It was one of those Wyeast smack packs. After I broke the small nutrient package, it did not swell in 10 h
Did my starter got infected? I hope not and I'll find out, when it's too late to do anything about it.
Started did not have any bad smell and taste was good too. No cheese or "medical" smells.
In my humble n00b opinion, if you have sterilized jars, spoons, tinfoil etc and boiled the DME as recommended, you will be fine.

Keep your finger out of your nose, to not scratch your head and sneeze at the cleaned equipment and so on. Common sense, you know.