starter fail?

I made my first starter last night. According to the directions on the wyeast propogator pack, boiled 2cups LME in ~2L water. Cooled. Pitched. I took the pack out of the fridge & smacked it about 3 hrs before i pitched. I believe it was starting to swell, but it wasn't completely ballooned like the last activator pack I used.
I woke up this morning and... nothing. I don't have an airlock on it - only tin foil, so i don't know if there is technically any CO2 being produced, but it was completely still - no activity at all. Every time I've brewed before, I always woke up to a bubbling airlock.

It also occurred to me that this is the first time I used tap water as opposed to spring water. Is it possible the chloramines in my tap water have killed the yeast?

Who knows - maybe i'll get home tonight to a flurry of fermentation. I just thought it was weird

No startes I have made have ever shown significant fermentation. Sometimes they do. The best way to determine if the starter is working is to look at the bottom of the container and see if a layer of yeast is accumulating.

McKBrew said:

No startes I have made have ever shown significant fermentation. Sometimes they do. The best way to determine if the starter is working is to look at the bottom of the container and see if a layer of yeast is accumulating.

Click to expand...

you know - there was a layer of sediment at the bottom - I just figured it was trub & stuff that settled out of the wort, but it was made from DME without any hops. Maybe that was it. No kreusen at all though.

I'll bet it's just fine.

McKBrew said:

I'll bet it's just fine.

Click to expand...

+1 to that!

McKBrew said:

I'll bet it's just fine.

Click to expand...

Rezilynt said:

+1 to that!

Click to expand...

Hope so

I was just expecting to see something like this:
Brewing - Yeast Starter on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I'm with the others. I've only every had one kind of active starter and that was with hefe yeast.

I had a similar incident. I thought the world was going to end because i didn't see krausen in my starter. But it was fine.

See this thread => https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/starter-fail-73599/

FishinDave07 said:

I had a similar incident. I thought the world was going to end because i didn't see krausen in my starter. But it was fine.

See this thread => https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/starter-fail-73599/

Click to expand...

so your starter kicked up a few days later?