Yeast Starter lag time?

My first two yeast starters (White Labs vial, 1 qt starter) showed initial signs of fermentation with a couple of hours. I've got one now that is 7 hours in and looks dead as a doornail. Is 7+ hours odd to see signs of life in a 1 qt starter? The best if used by date is late October, so it's not terribly old. I was hoping to brew tomorrow, but I'm starting to wonder. It'll be next Tuesday before i can get more yeast.

RDWHAHB! It can take up to 72 hours. Let it be. You will be fine.

My last starter took 36 hours and fermented like a beast!

Give it time. Some starters can take over a day to get kicking.

Monkey,

I had the same issue: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/stuck-starter-77775/

But, it never seemed to recover, It sat for a week and a half and had no decent amount of noticable yeast settlement.

So, I am starting over. You mileage may vary for sure, but I don't want to go through the hassle of brewing and not have a viable yeast starter.

Did you check the gravity Ceedubya?

No

But when I picked up the extra LME and yeast at the local home brew shop today, I just happened to pick up a brand new shiny hydrometer, so we will not be making that mistake again

that, and the time I am spending on here, which led me to Mr Malty, and some recent helpful advice from BarleyWater will definitely help me get past this one.

Hopefully Monkeys problems are different than mine, and his will be successful. I was told that if it had any amount of active fermentation, that it should be OK??

My friend! Always check the gravity before dumping. I suspect you had a flash ferment and you tossed good beer.

Oh, now I'm catchin on, you were reffering to after the fact. Well, the good news is, i have not tossed anything. Its still sitting in the fridge, so I can give it a reding now. But, I don't have a clue what the original gravity was.

As long as it's around 1.020 or below it's probably beer. If you didn't start with a sh*tload of sugar (all kinds) than if you post your reading we'll be able to tell if it's beer or not.

devaspawn said:

RDWHAHB! It can take up to 72 hours. Let it be. You will be fine.

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My last two starters were going within 2 to 3 hours. This one is now 17 hours old and shows nothing at all. Nada. Not even the tiniest hint of activity. I'd planned to start brewing about 2 hours from now. So much for that.

That's okay. I used yeast slurry from a local brewery (probably about a pint's worth of slurry) and it took 3 days before it got going. I usually have a 3 hour lag time as well. Just remember that yeast is a living organism and doesn't always follow the standard rules every time.

Sorry to bump such an old post, just wanted .to say thanks, and maybe it's worth it for others to be reminded of this too.

I'm comfortable with a couple days lag time on a beer, but I've never had a starter take more than 12 hours or so to show visible signs (or even be done, for that matter). Got some yeast from AHS and it arrived in the middle of a freaking heat wave, while I was at work, so the box sat out in direct sunlight in 95+F weather for several hours, not to mention whatever treatment it may have gotten during shipping. The cold pack was useless. One of the vials is for a 3-gallon average gravity batch, so before the shipping debacle I thought I might even forgo a starter for that. So much for that.

Anyway, did the starter up yesterday afternoon, and NOTHING. I pitched a little warm (I figure pitching temp doesn't really matter for a starter, since I'm not keeping the fermented wort anyway) and the airlock is still showing a lot of reverse pressure -- it hasn't even equalized. (That can't be explained by a leak) Makes me nervous, but...

devaspawn's post especially makes me feel better. Probably this yeast ain't in good shape from shipping, but if there's any alive, it should take off eventually. I will try to stop worrying.

(Luckily I have many many packets of US-05 on hand, and all of the beers I am planning on making right now I could sub that if I have to)

jsweet said:

the airlock is still showing a lot of reverse pressure

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why do you have an airlock on it?

foil ftw. yeast need that O2 that you are depriving it.

SHOOK said:

why do you have an airlock on it?

foil ftw. yeast need that O2 that you are depriving it.

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Hmmm, I'd never heard anyone say that foil was better than an airlock, I had only heard that it didn't matter a whole lot. An airlock makes me slightly less nervous...

And sure enough, searching the forums reveals most people use foil. Whadyaknow, glad I piped up. I'll switch it to foil when I get a chance. Thanks!

Yes, you'll want to use foil or a foam stopper.

As an update: Yep, eventually formed a kraeusen and it's ready to pitch now whenever I want. This was also a lager strain, which I forgot about (never used one before) so that probably also had something to do with the longer lag time. No worries at all!

nice 1 man!

foam beats foil as foil doesn't always foil the bugs (the ones that crawl up the side of the flask or fly in with wings!).