Slow Start WLP530

[dswager]

Things are moving along fine now, but was wondering if anybody had any thoughts about cause for a >48 visible start (krausen forming, airlock bubbling) after pitch. I'm sure the beer will be fine, but I'm wondering if there's something wrong in my process.

Details are:

2L starter:
200g DME, pinch fermaid-k, drop of fermcap, water, boil, cover, put in freezer for a couple hours, pitch, stir plate for 36 hours.

Due to the fermcap, no kruasen forms but the solution lightened and turned opaque

Recipe's a belgian dubbel hit all numbers during the mash, OG into the fermenter was 1.069. Oxygenated worth via oxygen bottle/airstone for 1 min. just prior to pitch (Sun night) . Pitched WLP530 at 71F, which was down to 65 in an hour or so.

Checked the next morning (Mon), no activity. The moving part of the 2-piece airlock was held in, I assumed from pulling a vacuum due to the temp differential between when I sealed up and when it reached 65.

Stayed this way all the way through Tues. night where although there still appeared to be no activity it didn't look like it was pulling a vacuum anymore.

Wed morning airlock was bubbling fine and the yeasties are aggressively chewing away at this point.

Any thoughts on what could have caused this? Again, not really worried about the beer, but wondering if there's something I need to do different/better.

 

[giraffe]

It sounds like an underpitch, perhaps the yeast was old or the vial was mistreated at the store? Was the starter as vigorous as usual?

 

[SeraW]

I literally just made a recipe like this with the same yeast, except for 3gallons my starter was 100g to 1L and I have no stir plate, just flask shaking. My aeration was carboy shaking. I had kräusen within a few hours and had my first honest blowoff in the morning - less than 24 hours after pitch. My vial was fresh from a store that takes good care of their yeasts - I think the expiration date was in September later this year.

So I'm gonna go with the "How old was the vial" idea, too, since by all I can see your practices were even better than mine.

That said, 48 hours to takeoff is not bad, either. I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[dswager]

My notes say package date of 3/23/15 which I presume I extrapolated from a 7/23/15 "use by" date.

My thoughts were the same, i.e. that the yeast just wasn't good maybe due to poor storage, or that my "feel the sides of the starter flask to see if it's cold enough to pitch" led to a poor start however...

My experience using fermcap is that it stops the foam you'd normally see in a starter to indicate activity, so what I use as signs of activity is is the fact that the starter goes from dark brown/translucent to tan/opaque. You can visually see particles and activity too. These signs were all definitely present. Maybe those aren't good indicators.

Probably just need to chalk this up to "hmmmm...." but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

 

[Likefully]

Checked the next morning (Mon), no activity. The moving part of the 2-piece airlock was held in, I assumed from pulling a vacuum due to the temp differential between when I sealed up and when it reached 65.

Stayed this way all the way through Tues. night where although there still appeared to be no activity it didn't look like it was pulling a vacuum anymore.

Wed morning airlock was bubbling fine and the yeasties are aggressively chewing away at this point.

How did this turn out?

I currently have something in the fermenter with 530 and 36 hours after pitching it seems to be behaving in a similar way to yours (hopefully).

 

[dswager]

it seemed to ferment out fine but it's currently lagering awaiting room in the keezer. tasted fine pre-keg out of the fermenter, although i'm not specifically familiar with the style, just working my way through bjcp styles and this was next on the list. my usual routine is to get a couple commercial versions and compare. likely i'll be tapping it this weekend so i'll let you know.

 

[Likefully]

There was still nothing happening with mine on Wednesday and I was about to give up on it and add some champagne yeast. I decided to give the fermenter another shake on Wednesday (I pitched Saturday) and clearly I didn't do enough of that to start - it was creating a massive mess by Thursday afternoon!