I put on two starters last night. One in a 4L jug, the other in a 1L mason jar. But, for the life of me I can’t remember which one is which.
One is a California lager that was over the due date and my intention was to step it up in the jar but then I started to second guess myself and I can’t remember if I decided to do it in the big starter or little.
The other was Wyeast 3711 French Saison which should be pretty easy to pick out by smell alone but I’m not getting much difference when I smell them.
And of course the one in the little jar is going strong which makes me wonder if it was the over age one or not. The one in the big jug is much slower. I’m gonna go ahead and use them but I may end up making California Saison and French Common.
Anyway, the message here is “Label your Starters!”
+1
Its not to bad if its 2 entirely different yeast strains, usually i can smell a subtle difference. However try mislabeling Wy1056 and WLP001…ouch!
(I often pitch the same strain from different suppliers to see subtle nuances between companies, youd be amazed at the results if you havent tried it!)
We mixed up fermenters once. We had made a corona clone for my father-in-law and a wit - bottled the corona thinking it was the wit - WORST WIT EVER! A few days later we bottled the other one and realized our mistake.
I smelled the starters, then I had the wife smell them, then I had my neighbour smell them. Both my wife and I chose the same “probably saison” and my friend had no idea. Based on this extremely accurate analysis (and the fact that I was too chicken to drink any), I made a saison today…maybe.
