First lager- 22 hrs after pitch- no activity

[TimL]

There's a story behind all this- I did try to propagate a vial by using 200ml water, about 1/8lb DME, chilled to approx 50, then pitched. Saw bubbles at the bottom of the growler.

A day after, made the wort. I don't have a chiller, did an ice bath on the 3 gallons in the pot, added to cold water in the carboy.. not cold enough.

Put it in the beer freezer with the control and cranked it down.

A little under an hour later, realized I left the growler with the yeast in the bottom of the freezer.. opened the bottle, saw some icy crystals on side of bottle. Put it out on counter to warm up while wort continued to chill.

Oxygenated and pitched last night... after 22 hrs no activity.

Is it a given I should go get a couple of vials of yeast tomorrow and pitch again when i get home?

[Kaiser]

Is it a given I should go get a couple of vials of yeast tomorrow and pitch again when i get home?

I'm afraid so.

How much yeast did you pitch at what temperature?

I assume that you wanted to cold pitch your lager, but didn't have enough yeast. With a 200 ml starter you will not be able to get the 80-100 ml yeast sediment that you need to pitch a 5gal batch cold. Jamil has a nifty pitching calculator on his webpage (mrmalty.com). The only drawback to this calculartor is, that it doesn't give you the volume of yeast sediment that you need. But if you assume that a White Labs vial is usually half full of yeast, you can determine the necessary amount of yeast sediment by taking the recomended number of vials and multiplying this by the volume of a half full vial.

Kai

[seanhagerty]

Kaiser, thats a really good point i've never thought of. The yeast sediment volume is what we should be looking at. Thanks man

Sean

[BigBadBrad]

With that small amount of yeast and possibly freezing the yeast too, you may have to pitch more yeast. Long lag times are not unusual for lagers, so you may be okay. My first lager, I pitched two vials of White Labs yeast into 5 gallons of wort. My lag time was about 72 hours before I saw any activity. Give it a little more time, but it wouldn't hurt to add another vial of yeast since you underpitched anyway.

Brad

[one_eye]

Try shaking it up (Someone please correct me if this would be bad, I can't think of why).

I had a problem with my first lager fermenting, I thought that it had been going for 2 weeks (it had a little baby head on it), then I took a sample and the gravity had only moved down a couple of points. I then shook the piss out of it for 3 days, the fermentation seemed to take off pretty well from there. I had pitched a 1 gallon starter, but I had the starter staring cold, which I have since heard Doc and Jamil says is non optimal (a few shows ago they said that the starters should be at room temp, and then possibly decanted).

[Kaiser]

I then shook the piss out of it for 3 days, the fermentation seemed to take off pretty well from there.
[\quote]

Yes that can help too. You just get the yeast back into suspension, which gets more of the yeast cells into contact with the wort. In a healthy fermentation, the circulation caused by the escaping CO2 would keep the yeast in suspension.

I had pitched a 1 gallon starter, but I had the starter staring cold, which I have since heard Doc and Jamil says is non optimal (a few shows ago they said that the starters should be at room temp, and then possibly decanted).

I think Doc prefers raising his lager yeast cold. It will go faster that way. But Jamil mentioned once that he likes to raise lager yeast cold (in the low 60s at least). His argument was that the yeast will show better flocculation when raised cold. I agree with the idea of propagating lager yeast cold. There is no need to get them used to a warm fermentation environment. But you have to keep in mind that the growth will be much slower if the yeast is kept cold. This means if you are in a hurry you may have to propagate warm and may even have to pitch warm.

Kai

[one_eye]

I'll have to re-listen to the show, but I thought that's what I heard them say.. I'll get back to you

[TimL]

this batch is fucked.

After my first post I decided to go and grab two vials, reoxygenate, and poor them in. The day after I headed up to Vail for Oktoberfest.

Got back in town Sunday, got into the freezer to look at my carboy- mold growing on the top of my wort.

I'm still interested in doing the lager thing, so I will try again (probably after I do a quick cider and pumpkin ale).

From what I've heard I thought Jamil was all about cold propagation and cold pitching. I will check out his calculator and see what's what. Have doc and him reached agreement, or are they still arguing?

It seems like propagating cold yeast at room temperature would freak the yeast out and allow for some other things to more readily feed and grow in the warm environment.

Thanks again for the advice and resource suggestions, very much appreciated.