Beer Forum

I completed my first brew of 2010 on Sunday afternoon, which was a hefeweizen I'm serving for the Super Bowl. The OG was 1.034 and I bought a fresh vial of WLP380 yeast that should have had great viability. Two days later, no airlock activity or krausen. I'm not one to worry about fermentation lags, and I've never had an issue before. I didn't make a starter because of the low OG/high viability combo, but is yeast a typical slow starter? Anything I should know? Worst case scenario is I could make a little starter of some Ommegang yeast I have and pitch that.

Thanks in advance for any help/insight.

What temperature is the wort at? Did you aerate well? How "fresh" is fresh for the vial?

The wort is at 64 degrees right now. I pitched at around 68 or so, after aerating with a diffusion stone for half an hour. The Best-Buy date is late March, which should give me about 70% viability according to Jamil's calculator. I know that's not optimum, but I figured within two days it would at least show a sign of something.

Thought I put that in the first post but evidently not. It's in a 6 gallon better bottle. Normally I ferment in glass, but I've used this a few times now with no problems.

Nothing regarding my process changed. Cooled the wort, aerated for half an hour, pitched around 68 and left to sit in the dark in the spare bedroom. Yesterday evening I wasn't too concerned with no activity, but tonight I thought it was a little strange.