Yesterday I brewed a RIS, and since it's my first "big" beer I thought I'd better make a starter. I made a stir plate and a starter and put my WLP002 in it. When I went to pour in the vial, the yeast was a solid lump and it fell out in one chunk, which I have never seen before. I put it on my stir plate and everything looked good, I let it spin for 24h and it smelled yeasty so I threw it in the fridge to cold-crash overnight. When I went to use it, I decanted it and the yeast cake at the bottom was hard and firm again. I wound up using a spoon to dig it out. I checked this morning and my blow-off tube was bubbling, but not the serious glad-I-used-a-blowoff-tube kind of bubbling I was expecting.
My question is: is this normal for WLP002? Now that I think about it, I should probably check my fridge and see if it's acting up, is it possible this is due to the yeast being too cold? I have an old mini-fridge and it's never been very enthusiastic about getting real cold, but maybe I should check anyway...
My question is: is this normal for WLP002? Now that I think about it, I should probably check my fridge and see if it's acting up, is it possible this is due to the yeast being too cold? I have an old mini-fridge and it's never been very enthusiastic about getting real cold, but maybe I should check anyway...