Yeast Starter Question.............

Quick question, I made my starter according to Palmer's directions. I'm making a Cream Ale from Austin Home Brew Supplies using yeast strain WLP080 White Labs Cream Ale Blend. What I did was start with 3 cups of water with 1/2 cup of Extra Light DME. Boiled for 10 minutes while stirring constantly, cooled down to around 70 degrees, pitched my yeast from its container into the glass container I'm using, put sanitized foil on top of it and swirled it a few times today. After I boiled for 10 minutes I had exactly two cups of wort left. I hadn't seen any activity in the container about 5 hours after I pitched. My concern is two fold.

1. Did I do this correctly?
2. Is my yeast okay due to the fact that it took several days to ship to me and the ice pack was actually warm when it arrived. Once I got the package I immediately put the yeast in the fridge, but I'm worried it was too late.

I plan on brewing tomorrow or Friday, just depends on what the yeast does. I sanitized everything like I normally do and the starter is sitting at around 68 degrees in my basement in my fermentation chamber to keep the light away from it. Haven't decided if I'm going to decant or not since I had to use 1/2 cup of the DME that was supposed to be going into my brew. Will that be an issue as well as far as the recipe goes? I wouldn't think so since it's such a small amount.

Relax. Give it a swirl every 2-3 hrs and see what happens. Everything looks ok to me, except I didn't see whether you aerated the wort before you added the yeast. The swirling you did should have introduced some, but you want plenty in the beginning (and throughout). I don't ever decant my starters. I always pitch at high krausen 8-24 hrs after beginning starter, unless it's a HUGE starter.

Damnit, no I didn't aerate the wort and I know better. Just poured it in the container, but it wasn't violent enought to aerate it well.

Just went down with a sanitized spood and stirred the wort up to kick the yeasties back up. I have some things to do this morning so I'll come back in a few hours and see how it's looking. I may even stop by my LHBS and pick up some more WLP080 if they have it or something similiar just in case.

BIGREDIOWAN said:

Just went down with a sanitized spood and stirred the wort up to kick the yeasties back up.

Click to expand...

Off topic, but this sounds dirty...

Lol, well unfortunately the yeast is a gonner probably along with the other yeast that I have. I picked some different yeast up at my LHBS, but it's not the same strain, he didn't have the cream strain. I used Safale #5 instead since it's a common ale yeast.
Got some smack packs to use on my next brew as it requires double pitching.

So did that mean you brewed today with us-05? I still wouldn't give up on your starter-sounds like just needs a little 02/shaking/time-if you are brewing tomorrow. If you get some krausen or see a nice layer of white yeast give it a go. us-05 is a nice clean strain for cream ales anyway, but might as well use the wlp 080 if ya got it. I brewed that the ahs cream ale with wlp080-will let you know how it tastes in another week. Washed the wlp080 and its chugging along on a oktoberfest ale as we speak. Either yeast you use-try to ferment mid 60s for the cream ale.

I have my ferm chamber at 65 and the wort is currently at 66. Just got to keep it there now for the next few weeks.