Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

At the second CAMRA meeting, we had discussed trying different flavors (some of them typically considered "off-flavors") just to know what these things taste like.  Last night, I discovered that I inadvertently found a way to produce and preserve huge amounts of diacetyl.  I had made a 2 qt starter of some WLP009 Australian Ale yeast.  I refrigerated the starter to flocculate the yeast as it reached krausen so that the yeast were still nice and healthy.  By doing this, I didn't give the yeast anytime to clean up fermentation byproducts like diacetyl. Rather than waste the starter wort, I tasted it, partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to see if this extra wort would give any unwanted flavors to the final product if I just dump it into the carboy.  I was amazed by the buttery movie-theater popcorn taste.  The diacetyl taste as described by all the forums and books was unmistakable in unhopped, half-fermented wort.  I suspect you could get a similar result using many of the British ale yeast like WLP002.  So the next time your making that English ale, make your starter, flocculate the yeast early (this will help you when you pitch into your larger batch), and give that starter wort a taste.  You'll be amazed by the result (it's actually not terrible tasting either).
I used much of the starter culture to make yeast stocks (see my earlier post), then the rest of the culture went to work on a pale ale.  At 6 hours post-pitching and with 2 inches of head in that 6.5g carboy already, this is one of my better starts to fermentation.

That is a cool idea, Spidey.  I have never tasted the wort I used to make my starters.  I usually just decant it off and then pitch.  I will try giving it a taste next time, as my techinque is fairly similar to yours.