Often times I wonder whether the liquid yeast is worth the hastle, this thing would have taken off 1 1/2 ago with US-05 and would have been fine.
I hear ya. I've only used liquid yeast a half dozen times and twice it didn't turn out as expected so my feelings towards liquid yeast have been uncertain. The yeast was used within a month of the manufacturing date too. The only explanation I can think of is it froze in transit. That's why I don't order liquid yeast in the winter months...it's too damn expensive to risk going bad.
Technically white labs yeast is a direct pitch, no starter required, so it's also a pain in the ass to make starters for every vile you buy in fear that it's lost viability....
That being said, I went against my better judgement and ordered 3 vials of WL irish ale yeast for a stout I'm making....I ordered 4 but they only had 3 available. I aerated the 17GAL of stout wort, then shook the vials and threw them in (this was sunday evening), crossing my fingers that it would be enough....well, monday morning it was bubbling away nicely...less than 12 hours later....so I was lucky the yeast didn't freeze in transit from OBK this time of year.
