Bad WLP400?

I made a Wit on Sunday, and Saturday night I made a starter. Well, tried to anyway. On Sunday morning there was NO evidence of fermentation activity. The airlock on the flask was actually lower it was the night before (due to the cooler night air I believe), and there was no tiny bubbles in the wort that I am used to seeing.

While I didn't notice the expiration date, I do remember having the yeast for a few months. It had a distinctly brownish color, which might be normal for Belgian Wit yeast for all I know. I smelled the tube just before I pitched it into the starter, and it smelled ok. Yeasty, but nothing more.

well the yeast may of been old. but it should of kicked in by now. did you aerate the starter? exactly how did you make it? how cold does it get at night there?

Last week I made a starter for some WY1084 that I had for a few months. When I ordered it online I forgot to add the cold pack and it got delivered on one of the few hot days of the year. I didn't think it was going to work. It took over two days to see enough activity for me to think it would be OK. I left it on the stir plate another day and a half. Once I was ready to pitch it looked plenty healthy. Maybe giving it plenty of time is the right answer. I have only used a stir plate a few times, but every other time I saw activity faster.

I have used the WLP400 yeast before, and IMHO it is temperamental. Sometimes it will show vigorous activity and then a while later can appear to be doing nothing at all.

I assume you were planning on pitching at high kraeusen 18-24 hours after making the starter?

Which is what I normally try to accomplish, however, I have had those starters that show no real signs of activity in the starter itself, but are fine in the end.

Use your nose, how does the starter smell now? Yeasty and bready, if so, it is probably fine, if not, you may want to seek an alternative.

The lag time on starters is like 3-5 hours and it should burn through the sugar overnight. I pitch my starters at 12 hours or so.

The temp at night is probably close to 65 at lowest. I had closed the window of that room due to the cold snap we've had, so it really doesn't get very cold.

The thing finally did start churning yesterday. This is the first WLP400 that I've used. I used Notty for the Wit recipe the last times and wanted to use this one on Sunday's brew.

I guess I'll just grow it up and get it ready for the next wit.

TipsyDragon said:

well the yeast may of been old. but it should of kicked in by now. did you aerate the starter? exactly how did you make it? how cold does it get at night there?

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I boiled a pint of water and added 1/2 cup of DME as per Palmer's book. I chilled in ice water until the temp was down to around 70. I was shaking the flask back and forth in the ice water to aerate while it chilled. It was pretty frothy.

I figured that 12 hours on the stirplate would have been good enough to get it going. It took over 24 before I noticed any activity.

I bought this at a local LHBS and kept in the inlaw's fridge while we visited them that weekend. Was only out of the fridge for 45 minutes between store and their house, and the 2 hour drive it was in a cooler with ice.