Homebrewtalk Posting - Lambicus not starting

I made a 1.5 liter starter using WLP653 (Brett Lambicus) about 60 hours ago and I'm not seeing any activity at all. I did the starter like all other 40+ starters I have done before, but this time I'm not seeing any progress.

The starter has been kept at 70-75 and I even added a little yeast nutrient just in case. The vial did seem to have very little sediment, but I figured this was normal. The vial is dated best before 7/8/10, so seems like it should be viable.

I have done both C. and B. strain starters before like this without problems.

Any idea what might be happening? Bad yeast, need more time, more nutrients, more warmth?

Only other thing worth mentioning is that I am using a stir plate.

Link to Thread

Update - 3/1/2010

The starter finally started after 84 hours, probably the longest it has ever taken. Fermentation is slow, thus it looks like it will take a few days to finish. I did write to White Labs prior to it starting. Below is the response:

Brettanomyces is a lot slower worker than Saccharomyces so you have to be really patient with it.  We normally recommend a full week when making a starter, and there is not a lot of cells in the culture on purpose.  Brett seems to work best when it's stressed, so keeping the cell count low will force it to do a lot of growing in your beer, thus creating a lot of flavor compounds.  Since the Best Before date is in July of this year, you have a very fresh culture of Brett so it's very unlikely that the yeast is no good.  Give it a full week and see how it goes.  Also, when making a starter, try to keep your gravity at 1.040 or below, otherwise the yeast may skip the growth phase and go directly to fermentation in what is known as the "Crabtree Effect"

Some good points here. Brett works better when its stressed, so if you want stronger brett character use less yeast. Second good point is the reference to the "Crabtree effect." I've never heard it called this before, but its nice to have a name for it. This is why starters are always kept under 1.040sg. When I was diagnosing my starter earlier I noticed the gravity was high (around 1.050sg), so I'm hoping I don't have a problem. I may have to adjust my starter calculations down in the future to account for the unpredictability of dry extract.