Is my yeast starter kaput?

WeHeavy said:

I made a starter Friday that had a gravity reading of 13 brix (1.051) plus I added yeast nutrient to it.
After 3 days on the stir plate it just didn't look like anything much was happening so I took a reading and got 10 brix (1.039). So it's at least doing something.
After some head scratching I noticed the vial had a best before date of March 20 2009 and I just bought it last Thursday. I assume it had been stored in the vendors fridge the whole time until it was sold to me.
This is the first time I've used this yeast strain (White Labs WLP840) so is the yeast experiencing a long lag period or is it kaput?

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steelerguy said:

Couple things...

Starters on stir plates don't foam a lot or get a krausen or anything so it is hard to tell if anything is happening. The biggest thing I notice is it gets a lot lighter as the yeast multiply.

Next thing is, did you use a refractometer to measure the gravity? I only ask because you gave the reading in Brix. If so, you can't use that value straight up to measure a FG, you have to do a conversion. The alcohol in the sample throws the reading off. If you ran it on a stir place at anything over 60 that sucker is done at this point.

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