Sluggish Yeast Starter

[WildHopHunter]

Hi everyone - I started keeping frozen yeast bank about a year ago. I started with The Yeast Bay's "Vermont IPA" yeast. Every time I thaw out a vial of yeast and build a starter it can take as long as 72 hours to see any activity.

I had been creating 1 liter starters and I thought that this may have been too much volume for such a small amount of yeast. This week I decided to create a 500ml starter instead. I thawed out a vial of yeast on Wed night and added it to the starter. Thurs night there were no signs of activity, so being impatient I thawed out another vial and added it to the starter. Finally on Saturday morning the starter is showing some signs of life (total elapsed time of ~60 hours).

Is it normal for yeast from a frozen bank to take so long to get going?
Should the size of my starter be even smaller.....maybe 250ml?

 

[B2Barleywine]

I'm new to freezing yeast myself, but I've heard it can take a couple of days to start. In my own experience, my frozen yeast get going within 12 - 24 hours. After removing yeast from the freezer, I first place in the fridge for a few days to thaw before making starter. From there, I pitch my 15 ml yeast/glycerin slurry into 500ml starter and step up from there. I used the link below as a guide and it worked really well:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=35891

I think a key part is to let the frozen yeast thaw in the fridge for a few days. Good luck...