First Starter - Questions

So tomorrow is brew day and I did my first yeast starter tonite.

What I am wondering is how will I know if the yeast in the starter are active.....will I see them churning away and also about how long after pitching starter should I see activity (approximately).

Starter is 1000 ml, 66F starter pitch temp, 1/2 cup DME, and yeast is Wyeast 3068 (Wiehestephan Weizen)......for a Hefewiezen

I am brewing this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/bee-cave-brewery-bavarian-hefeweizen-35679/

Are you using a stir plate? What is the production date of the yeast? It all depends, on my starter I started noticing activity after 4-5 hours.. It should only take 24 hours or so for your starter, if using a stir plate you might not see any krausen ontop, but a nice ring of co2 bubbles.

With your yeast I would expect you'll start to smell a nice sulfur smell coming from your starter as well.

You might or might not see any krausen. The color should change a bit, getting more clear. You might also see tiny bubbles rising in the wort. You could take a gravity reading to see the change.

Are you using a stirplate? I have had a couple where the only thing I was able to see was a thicker layer on the bottom of the flask when I took it off the stirplate.

I typically get action in as little as 3-4 hours and always before morning. I would not get worried for 2 days.

No stir plate.....doing it the old fasioned way and giving it a swirl every so often

Well....been about 2.5 hours and when I swirl it now there is a ton of foam that develops over the liquid......like the height of foam is equal to the liquid height......if that is an indicator???

Yeah. I would call that an indicator. Carbon dioxide. Means yeast are working. I just recently did a starter for first time and just walking by a swirling every chance i got. Sometime every 30 minutes. other times it could be 8 hours (work). Dunkelweizen is still in primary. But during primary of this, it was large kreusen (though I heard this weihenstephan yeast does that). Finally slowed on day 4. Anyway, good luck. The package of Wyeast I had was 6 months old, so I beefed up starter to 3 Liters before pitched.

I am doing a Stout next week and the yeast my LHBS had was from April 2012......think I will be ok doing just a 1 litre starter or should I do a 2 litre? The OG will only be 1.060 and FG 1.023

I use Mr. Malty.com Dunkelweizen was 1.061. Did just under 3 Liter starter. Never measured the gravity of the starter (DME and water). But you don't know until you try. My yeast came up very fast after smacked it and poured into starter. Within 3.5 -4 hours starter had some activity. Not much experience with starters up until last Sunday. Just letting you know what I did and am very happy with how things are turning out so far.

Well I pitched my yeast starter into my 5.5 gallon Hefeweizen batch at 5:30PM yesterday.....this morning at 8AM.....there was rigorous fermentation.....yeasties are going at it hard! First time doing starter and let me tell you I will always do a starter for now on.....

Yeah, I felt the same way when I did my first starter. My dunkelweizen is still fermenting after 8 days. Well, very slowly. I'm used to not seeing any activity after 5 or 6 days. Still activity in airlock. Still movement of yeast inside carboy. Even top-cropped it and got some in quart jar. Going to harvest some during bottling as well. It's wyeast weihenstephan strain. (Weiheinstephan or Weihenstephan??)