Novice here. Done a few brews so far that have come out pretty well. I built a starter last night using Wyesat London Ale for a brew tonight. Background info: Ordered it with some other ingredients and it arrived Saturday. I forgot to refrigerate it and it was out at room temperature for 2 days. Last night I smacked it and it never inflated after a few hours. It was manufactured Sept 20107. After a few hours, boiled up some DME, cooled it, and added the yeast. I looked inside the packet and it had 2 activators, one was broken and the other was still in tact. I cut the in tact one and poured it into the starter with the rest of the yeast. My question is with any of the above red flags indicated that maybe I should ditch it and build a new starter tonight. Not refrigerated for 2 days Didn't inflate Added the activator to the starter after pouring the yeast (is that bad??)
I would say if you have good activity in your starter everything should be ok for you. I have also had the wyeast smack packs not pop both packs inside of it. I also cut them open and added them to the starter. IIRC I think the contents in the activators is just wort and yeast nutrients. When this happened to me my beer turned out just fine.
A couple of thoughts: Your packet was five months old and stored warm, this can be a major problem. I ask (politely) for age of yeast before buying anything, try to be less than 2 months and 3 is about my limit. A big-box store like Northern Brewer or More Beer is not really set up to give this sort of feedback, that's why I use smaller suppliers where you can talk to the person who's processing the order. I also buy two ice packs when shipping. Older yeast packets will take longer to inflate, up to 24 hours. Also expect much less inflation. If a packet never inflated I would not use it. Try and get a feel for yeast calculators . . . here's a good one: http://yeastcalculator.com/ After having had liquid yeast that wouldn't start, I never brew without having some type of "back up" yeast. It might be something as simple as US 05. All that said, I've started a five month old packet of London Ale that did just fine.
