No Krausen but very lively

[valhalla76]

Hello people, had a brew day on friday and all went well, did a broadside clone and used brewlabs tv3 yeast slope whicg i grew up to 3 litres and pitched a 500ml starter, didnt get going for about 12 hrs then no proper krausen so tried rousing, producing lots of bubbles and bits flying about in the solution but no head. Has anyone else had this before? Whenever ive used packet yeast its always gone ape and splurdged out the lid. Do you rekon its ok? Cheers

[RdeV]

Appearances are just appearances, fairly meaningless without actual SG data, so break out the old hydrometer would be my first suggestion and give it a measure.

[valhalla76]

Hi rdev, og was 1046 and took a reading and temp was 17.5 last night so moved it inside, not in the garage, has dropped to 1020, its been 5 days now and think thats about 3.5 abv so could do with dropping a few more points.

[RdeV]

I'll say, 5 days is probably a little ambitious though, I seldom bother to even look at my ales inside a week, so be patient is my advice. Then give it some encouragement, it will probably drop a few more points with a rouse or two and a decent diacetyl rest.
I guess it may have been under- pitched as well, did you measure the SG of the discarded starter wort? I usually only do that to verify when I'm reasonably sure it has finished during the stepping up phases, however starters are often hard to read. Its also not a strain I've used, others may have more to add?
HTH, good luck with it!