Beer Forum

My fermentation has not started on a 1.05go Batch. I used The Yeast cake from a sour batch that sat for a year. After 24h I pitcged a Brett starter that has been sitting for a few months. 24 hours later still nothing. I remember hearing that Brett can have a long lag phase. It's been sitting around 70°. I just put a heating pad on it warm it up. Any suggestions thoughts on lag phases?

If your sour yeast cake was a year old, and your brett was a few mos old then both are not adequately prepared to ferment out your 1.050 batch. You would have been better prepared by getting a 2 qt starter going with the brett to wake it up and build some fresh cells, chill, and decant before pitching that along with 1-2 cups of slurry from your sour cake.

If it does not get going within the next 24 hrs you may want to consider pitching a pack of rehydrated US-05 to ensure that the wort at least starts fermenting. Your souring agents (bacteria/brett) will eventually get going and when you rack to secondary (carboy or keg in 4-6 wks) your beer should sour just fine given appropriate time (8-12 mos).

+1

Fermentation started this morning. I had a five day lag time. What are my expected dangers are repercussions of this

No dangers if the pH dropped. You tell us about repercussions...I expect it will be fine. I had a long lagtime with a barrel fermented beer and it's developing nicely, verging on very nicely. 10 gallon barrel filled with traditional turbid mashed wort fermented with a 500mL starter of dregs from 8 Lambics. The starter took 2 weeks to show activity. 1.050 OG and 5.20 post boil pH of the turbid mashed wort. Took 2 weeks to get noticable gas evolution out of the barrel's blow-off tube. After that 2 weeks, it had fermented down to 1.039 and pH dropped to 4.32. The next measurement, 4 months later, was 1.007. It was brewed last winter so the barrel room was low 60's. The room is temp controlled during the summer to mid 60's. Next time (this spring), I will wait until it's warmer to do the same to the next barrel to get action quicker. I've been trying to isolate species from my favorite sours this winter to prepare instead of the straight dreg attack.

It started this morning. I walked into the room this afternoon and all I could smell is peach, nectarine, pineapple, and papaya.
So happy.

norfire0 wrote:It started this morning. I walked into the room this afternoon and all I could smell is peach, nectarine, pineapple, and papaya.
So happy.

You need to keep your nose out of the Chiquita Banana Lady's headdress!!