No action starter

[dirtydingus]

2 room temp Cal. Ale in 1 litre starter beer at 70* Stir plate doing its job. Yeast well within its use by date. No kraesen what so ever. Looked like flat beer swirling in the flask. Left it overnight, no action. Thought that sanitizing the flask with Star San was the culprit. I boil my beer in a sauce pan and transfer to flask then to stir plate. Put it in the fridge to see if I could save it and still use it a day later. Got a good kreusen going after about 2 hrs. Don't know what's going on here. Maybe I don't know enough about yeast. Going to brew tomorrow(Tue). Should I still use it or not?

 

[shanecb]

Wait, I'm confused. Are you saying that when you stuck it in a fridge for 2hrs you saw a krausen?

 

[dirtydingus]

Yep. Bubbling just as if on a stir plate.

 

[sfish]

The way you wrote your message it sounds like you boiled after adding the yeast. if this is true the yeast are dead and something else is growing.

There should be little noticable kraesen with stir plate because the action removes the co2 the yeast would cling to.

 

[shanecb]

Yeah, there's not much of a krausen that you can see on a stir plate. Usually just some frothing on top. But I have absolutely no idea what's with the bubbling you're seeing when it's in the fridge.

 

[flars]

Put your starter back on the stir plate, it hasn't finished fermenting yet. You saw krausen in the frig because the yeast was still active, and the wort did not cool to the point of putting the yeast into dormancy.