Beer Forum

Making first lager starter for 20gal system. 2.5 gal, 1.040OG starter at 74 deg. with one vial of white labs wlp802 12 hours ago on stir plate. No Krausen and only 3 bubbles from the airlock per minute. should I be worried/ should I run 40 miles to buy more yeast. Help!!!

Kind of a waste of time using an airlock on a starter on a stirplate. Sanitize a piece of foil to cover the top. You need good oxygen intake to get good growth on a stirplate

Yeah I had foil on top, but put the air lock on to see if there was any activity.

I think you're probably starting with too darn big a volume. 2.5 G is fully half of a typical homebrew batch of beer. Maybe next time start with a couple pints at first, and then step up from there as needed?

My guess is that, just like an underpitched full batch, this one is gonna take awhile to get rocking.

When are you brewing? If you've got the time, it will eventually build itself up.

Yeah, what they said, start with a 500 ml starter and double the volume every 1-2 days until you get up to 2 gallons.

Yeah your 2.5 gallons is a large volume to start with but will work just fine if you wait a few more days, Next time step up the vial at least once before pitching into 2.5 gallons. To keep it simple I would just pitch the vial in 2l and then go to the 2.5 gallons. That should keep it super active through the whole process.