Beer Forum

So, I had some yeast slurry that's been in the fridge for a while (a while... 4 weeks. I know, a little long). To check it out, I throw about 250 mls of it into 400 mls of 1.040 wort, in a 1L eurlenmyer, to check its viability. The next day, its ripping through it (I wasn't looking for growth with such a small starter, but more or less wanted to see if it was still kicking). The rest of the slurry I added to about 1300mls of 1.040 wort, to build a starter for my brewday this weekend..... and ended up pitching probably 350-400mls into that (slurry mind you, probably pretty heavy on the trub side, because it was from the primary. I only use a primary).

Here is the thing, I pitched the smaller starter, because it looked rather strong, and it smelled/tasted fine - into a 1.045 beer last night. I usually get about 8-12 hr lags, which I am happy with... but now I am JUST starting to see activity... and its pretty minimal... the very beginning foam of a krausen. Its been 22hrs. I still have the big starter of the same yeast... so I could pitch in a bit more to take the stress of the guys, or I could just let it rock since it looks like they are hitting the anaerobic ferm.

My point, I know I underpitched to begin with now, but should I just let it rock, or top it off w/ a little extra yeasties to keep it going? I really don't like to mess w/ my fermentor once things get going.... risk of infection and whatnot. What would you guys do?

Let it rock.

one more vote for letting it rock.

It's rockin.

My lag is usually 8-12... so the 24hr lag kind of put me off, but things look pretty legit at this point. Just hope it isn't underattenuated/etc.

one of my best beers was a Dortunder that had a 60+ hour lag time. I was sweating it the whole time, beleive me. Now I don't worry and more.