slow start

[growler]

Is it normal for a barleywine 1.098 OG to start slow and pickup the pace 2 days later?
I brewed sunday added a 1 liter starter of wlp099. started to ferment sunday 9 pm. real slow about 3/4 inch of foam. Took off though on tuesday. found the airlock filled with foam about 7 pm. went to change it with a clean one and the damn thing blew all over the ceiling. got a blow off tube on it now. Is this normal?

[brewinhard]

It most definitely is when severly underpitching. A 1 liter starter for a 1.098 barleywine is nowhere near enough yeast to tackle such a big job. You might want to pitch some more yeast (maybe a rehydrated packet of US-05) to help attenuate and dry out your beer more as the 1 liter of yeast you added may not be enough to finish the job once the alcoholic environemnt becomes too strong. Next time make a smaller gravity batch of beer first and reuse (some or all) the yeast cake for a big job like this. Good luck!