Burnt rubber or sulfur smell in starter. Options?

[Simon_]

TL;DR - My wlp820 starter from harvested trub smells of burnt rubber. What did I do wrong and is there anyway I can still recover it?


Kegged a lager made with wlp820 at the weekend. It came out well. The yeast performed well during fermentation dropping from 1.056 to 1.015 over 2 weeks so I don't think it would've been stressed. Had made a big 4L starter initially for that beer stepped up from the vial.

I put the trub slurry into 2 jam jars I had boiled and cooled. I added a bit of cool boiled water so the slurry could resettle. Stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours. Pulled it out last night, decanted and added it to 1L of 1.040 DME wort in an Erlenmeyer. The slurry was cold from the fridge and the wort was about 16c. Would this temp difference be an issue?

This morning there was an undeniable burnt rubber smell I'd understand was autolysis. It could equally be sulfur I'm smelling. There is strong fermentation activity.

Is it definitely autolysis and why did it occur assuming I've kept things clean and sterile and the yeast slurry is healthy?

Do I have any hope to build the starter up more and the yeast will grow / get healthier? Or should I write it off?

I'll be overbuilding starters from vials from here on in but would like to use this yeast one more time.

[Pheeel]

Sounds like it should be chucked

[molc]

Mad that is got that smell after only one wash. You analysis seems spot on, but the conditions it was prepared in don't suggest that should be the outcome. Interesting to hear what the yeast heads on here will have to say.

[Leann ull]

Rubber is ruptured dead yeast cells
How long was it on primary? Did you secondary?
Same old questions about fermentation temp,  was it in a fridge, temp cycling
You said you did a starter, how on a stir plate for how long, you need to step into 1 l and then to 4 or 5, it's too much of a jump if yeast is not 100%
Never have more that a 5 degree differential between what you are combining, yeast will suffer
General train of thought is you can do starters at ambiant, I've only ever done them in fridge they were ultimately going to be used in.
820 needs a long time to condition and certainly not on primary
If you transferred early enough and lagered you may just have be able to save original batch
Pilsners/lagers are uckers for punishing minor errors that you get away with in ales
I tend not to enter 3 legged donkeys in Grand Nationals, particularly in view of how long the bloody things take to brew and condition, better to chuck and start again Im afraid.

[Simon_]

The original beer is lovely and doesn't have any issues IMO. I did pitch it high in error but brought it down and I don't think the beer shows any signs of it.  It was on primary for about 2 weeks @13c then D Rest then crashed for 2 weeks then transferred to keg this weekend.
Starter was vial to 1L to 2L to 4L. Manual stirring.

Yeah will probably chuck this starter.

[Leann ull]

Too long on primary
You need to go to secondary just after d rest
Have a look and making up a stir plate if you are gonna do pilsners/lagers longer term

[Simon_]

Yeah stirplate should be mid Atlantic about now