The local shop was out of WLP001 so I grabbed 051 instead. A few Google searches later and it looks like this strain doesn’t work well below 66F (one forum post claimed it stalls below that).
Does anyone here have first hand experience with this yeast? Does pitching at 66F with a slow rise sound okay?
Assuming you have a healthy, appropriate-sized pitch, it works fine below 66F. I typically pitch this strain at 63-64F, hold it there for the first 24-48 hours, then slowly raise to the upper 60s. Any yeast strain is susceptible to dropping out if the temperature falls, so maybe that’s how others don’t have success with it?
Ok thanks. I’ll do that. The starter smelled quite sulfury this morning when I put it in the fridge to settle, so I got to worrying about fermenting warmer than I usually do.
+1
Depending on your ambient temp and recipe I usually let the beer rise up naturally after pitching.
I haven’t gone below the mid-60’s with this strain, but I haven’t had any problems. One issue I had was that it didn’t seem to flocculate out as well as I’m used to with US-05/WLP001. I’ve had some beers taste pretty muddy/yeasty at first and ended up needing more time to settle out in the bottle.
Craaap. My first stalled fermentation. 
Even after bringing it up to 71 and swirling it’s stuck at 1.025 (should be around 1.014). I dumped a packet of US-05 in there, hopefully I’ll see some more activity in the morning.
I’m 99% sure it is NOT a wort issue: I mashed at 147F.
Could be my starter size was too small. The yeast was only 50% viable. I ended up with a smaller volume of starter wort than I should have (mis-measured). And I forgot to add any yeast nutrient to the starter wort.
Or it could be aeration. This was a 1.076 wort. The tube from the fish tank pump was loose so I wasn’t getting full volume of air. (I just got an O2 kit so by-by to the fish tank pump!)
Anyway, no worries. I’ll drink it as-is if I have to…overly sweet, 6% alcohol hop bomb that it is currently! ;D
