Mr GreenwoodRover, flocculation was never your problem. Your problem was an insufficient amount of yeast - that's what gives an insipid, relatively inactive ferment with little krauesen. Your yeasties were overwhelmed and tired.
That's the trouble with White Labs: it's great yeast, but those little vials simply don't have enough active cells to properly inoculate a 5-gallon batch of beer.
For example, the optimum cell count to properly ferment a wort of 1.050 is 184 billion
active cells. White Labs, according to their
FAQ, contains between 70 and 140 billion cells. Thus, you need to either buy two vials of WL yeast or make a starter. (Note: WL makes no claim how many
active cells can be found in a vial; that number is too dependent on storage and handling between their lab and your brewery.)
Simply put, if using liquid yeast, it is always best to pitch a vigourously active starter or fresh slurry from a previous batch. If you don't get activity in four or five hours, you're not pitching optimally.
Mr Malty's Yeast Pitching Calculator is an invaluable resource. Bookmark it!
All that said, countless brewers have made good beer without worrying about pitching technique. All I'm saying is, the only cure for worry is education. If you're going to worry about it, educate yourself with the proper methodology. That will at least give you enough information to make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to change anything in order to remove the worry. You dig?
Cheers,
Bob
