Ever had a serious lag time in a starter??

I've always had activity in my starters in a couple of hours. Last night I did as I always did, with the modification of using sanitized tin foil as was suggested. I see no signs of anything going on (mini krusen or bubbling). To see if gas was being produced I put an airlock on and nothing is happening. I swirled and swirled last night and today. It's been about 18 hours since pitching into the starter. It was WL Edinburgh and was past its use by date by about two weeks.

give it more time. if it's only a couple weeks past that arbitrary use-by date, then there're still viable cells in there. It's just taking a bit longer...my starters have taken 24+ hours to start, even on stirplate, so rdwhahb!

I've had 4-day lag before seeing activity when starting with a 6-month old smack-pack. Your patience will be rewarded

-Joe

nostalgia said:

I've had 4-day lag before seeing activity when starting with a 6-month old smack-pack. Your patience will be rewarded

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Same here, revived 2 6 month old pack...took days but was great once it got going.

I just brewed a 11 gallon batch of Pale Ale on Saturday. Split it into two 6 gal carboys. One went into fermentation chamber (converted freezer) and one into fermentation closet. Exact same ingredients, same Nottingham yeast. The one in the closet started in a few hours and is still chugging along. The one in the freezer just started Monday night. Both are kept at 68, but I think the closet is more constant. Bottom line is, yes, sometimes there will be serious lag times, but I've never seen one not start.

Since I absolutely, positively, have to brew now because it's supposed to rain the next five days I am going to my back up of dry Safbrew S-33. I'll pay a little better attention from now on and probably stick with Wyeast if I can since I've had great luck with it.