Strange yeast starter

[joehoppy]

So I have been brewing for a little over a year now and things have been going quite well for the past few months. I mostly use liquid yeast and always make a starter with it. Every starter I have ever made went like clockwork, activity within 4-8 hours and done in 24-36 hours. So the other day, Sunday to be exact, I pull out a vile of WLP001 that is a bit older but still a month before the best by date and I make a 2l starter to farm up some yeast for future batches. I used 9 cups of water and 2 cups DME. warmed up the vial of yeast a bit before pitching it. Starter wort was cooled to the low 70's for temp. No problems at all. I put it on the stirplate and for the first time ever no activity at all for 24+ hours. Then suddenly about 36 hours in I check on it and it literally blew out of the flask and I had yeast dripping out all over the place. So I think no big deal, the yeast must have just taken it's sweet ol time to get going. Well it's now Thursday and it is still fermenting! Lots of co2 bubbles coming up from the bottom and still lots of krausen. I have never had a starter act like this before. Anyone else ever have this sort of thing happen to them?

 

[cjgenever]

You had poor viability in that vial is all.

 

[Wolfbrau]

Worst case? Decant and repitch to another starter of equal volume. If it works, hey, you're golden.

 

[j1n]

better than having no activity and postponing your brew day. yeah it just happened to me this week.

 

[joehoppy]

Yup, it looks as I'd it has finally finished up. Gonna chill it, decant and do another starter. The whole idea with this starter was to propogate and divide it up into some empty white labs vials to use for starters down the road.