What is the possibility of this?

Boiled 750 Ml of well water and cooled it to approx 70 Degrees F. I dissolved one cup of wheat DME into this while it was on a rolling boil. After cooling I tossed in one sachet of S-23 yeast and waited 15 hours. Not one bubble or indication that the yeast have been roused at all. So I tossed my back up S-23 in and waited another 9 hours and again no the first bubble or hint of fermentation. So I figgured WTF and tossed in a wyeast activator packet that swelled for 3 hours after activation and still no sign of fermentation. After 24 hours I expected a nice active little colony eating itself into oblivion. I stopped the stir plate and allowed the slurry to sit perfectly still and it began to seperate but not the first hint of a bubble from either flavor of yeast. What is the possibility that I have three consecutive dead yeast packs? Two were Fermentis and before the best used before date and the wyeast did swell the bag after I smacked the inner pack. Two of the packets were kept under constant refrigeration since they arrived from midwest and Austin and the original S-23 had been in my mash tun cooler outside in my unheated/uncooled shop with the lid sealed. I plan to delay the brew of the kit till I allow at least 24 hours for the last addition to activate and have a look under the microscope for viable cells or the lack of. It just seems kind of out of the ordinary to possible have three packs from 3 suppliers and all went bad. Guess I will just have to wait, and do a post mortem tommorrow...

Wheelchair Bob

It's entirely possible that a 750ml starter fermented out in a few hours, like part of the overnight right away. If you want, you could always check an SG and see!

I am willing to bet that you wasted a bunch of yeast there. It either fermented out while you were at work, or sleeping, or it just didn't start yet. Patience is the key, trust me!

Well past 24 hours and not the first sign of even the tiniest bubble under observation and close scrutiny. Will check the Grav and have a look at the yeasties in the morning under the microscope. I checked the starter every couple of hours through the day and frequently through the night and have not observed the first indication of even one tiny bubble. I am at a loss, but I will have a look in the morning again and see what gives, then probably head to the LHBS to get a vial and call it done.

Wheely.....

Checked the Grav at 6 Am and it was still 1.030 and not the slightest indication of even the tiniest bubble under the closest scrutiny. I am allowing it to settle out with the stirrer turned off to see if the excess yeast load had an adverse effect on the grav reading and was possibly keeping the bottom dwelling lager yeast too stirred up to work well. I am still at a loss, never had such an epic fail without some huge glaring mistake or infection......
WCB

I find that really surprising and imagine the unlikelyhood of having THREE packets of yeast that were no good. Didn't you say the WYeast had swelled up? That is a sign of the yeast being active, isn't it?

I'm pretty sure I did something to kill this batch. I have looked at my notes and re-thought every step I took and cannot dtetrmine what I did to kill them. My Mother in Law has a weird deal about touchin any part of the process of canning tomatoes. if she does the jars explode later in the cabinet. Some kind of weird acid/person interaction.... I do take a ton of anti-biotics and anti rejection meds and have been taking them for a few years on a well/septic system. I may have somehow contaminated the slurry or worse yet added something to the well water that prevents yeast from working. Dunno, but the Grav has been 1.030 unchanged, the slurry smells and tatses sour and I have not observed even one bubble rise from the bottom. So it's a dumper and try a different approach, such as direct pitch of a vial and using store bought spring water. Once that works I will slowly add back individual elements till I discover the root cause of the starter failure. Crap..........
Wheelchair Bob

Have you had any issues in recent batches of beer or was this starter your first?

Could the problem be with the DME? I know it is very unlikely, but maybe there was something in the DME that killed the yeast. I'd throw out the whole batch and try a different batch of DME before trying more yeast.

^^^ What he said. Too weird, something isn't right, just dump it, sanitize heavily and start over.

Oh and now that u mentioned the bad juju of ur momma's canned tomatoes, u totally hexed it. even if it does start to bubble now, DUMP IT!

Do you always use your well water?

The only thing you can do to diagnose is start trying over, isolating and changing one variable at a time. Start with your water and try to make a starter with bottled water from the store. If this works then your well water is the culprit.

Recently, I had a starter that I made on Wednesday do nothing--NOTHING. Late Friday, I assumed the yeast pack I had stored in the fridge must have been bad since it didn't swell much, so instead of brewing on Saturday as I planned I decided to start a new starter on Saturday (the next morning) and then brew on Tuesday (I would have to take longer because I was stepping it up to pitch to two batches brewed together). I almost threw out the one that wasn't doing anything, but figured I'd just clean it up on Saturday. Saturday morning I got out of bed and headed for the coffee pot and saw that my "dead" starter had suddenly come to life and was fermenting just fine. The batches turned out fine.

I know yours was several days ago, so I guess it wasn't just a matter of time. Only thing I can think of is trying different water.

I alway use well water and this was the first starter I attempted. I will start over and use bottled water to see if the antibiotocs are causing an issue. I looked at the cells under the scope Sunday and the cell walls did not appear ruptured or see a lot of blown up cells. Never had any issue with the water since it comes out of the Floridan Aquifer and is clear, cool and no smells or tastes. Thursday I have some more yeast coming and I will decide if I want to direct pitch or do a starter then, I'm kind of leaning toward pitching the WB-06 dry directly into the fermentor and using strictly bottled spring water to get a batch going in my new germ chamber. Just dieing to give the chamber a test batch at a lower lagering type temp set up. Maybe have too many experiments going at once and losing track of some important parameter. W'ell see Friday.
Wheelchair Bob

Do you have any idea what I would give to have house water that was cool, clear and without odors or bad taste?