Did I just cook my yeast?

I wasn't thinking and added yeast (Munich Lager) to my six liter starter wort when the wort was still warm to the touch. I'd guess about 80 degrees or so. After a day I have nothing going on, nada, zilch. Are my yeasties toast? Do I give them another day or so to wake up or buy another yeast pouch and repitch?

80 degrees is not even close enough to kill yeast. How do you know nothing has happened? Are you going by the airlock or visually?


Rev.

Looking at the bottle visually. I'm used to seeing at least a little action in the bottle after 24 hours. The complete lack of anything made me think I'd toasted the yeast.

can you survive at 80*?? then yeast can too. give it a couple of days. 24-72hrs.

Got home from work tonight and still absolutely nothing going on. I need the starter for this weekend so I pitched a fresh vial of White Labs in the bottle. Hope to have better luck with this batch.

Think I figured this out -- Bought the wrong size stopper for the better bottle so I loosely covered the neck with a piece of foil. No pressure build up in the bottle therefore no krausen or activity in the wort during fermentation. A good shake generates a good release of fizz so carbonation is taking place. I'll check the specific gravity in a few days and I hope to see 1.02 or so.

????????

Pressure?? causing Krausen???

haven't heard of that.

Warm to the touch is NOT 80F
Only when the temperature is warmer than that part of the body will it feel warm. For 80 to be warm, your fingers had to be 70F...

Warm to the touch is often near 100 or more. most yeast don't make it past 105.

maybe if you had said "kinda luke-warm to the touch" - I'd have guessed 80 -




just sayin'


where's your thermometer in this scenario? not handy?
not trying to give you a hard time, but not holding out much hope for your yeasties...

I'd still give it a few days, otherwise there could be a few problems:
1. the one you mentioned (more than 80 though)
2. bad/old yeast
3. Your wort didn't have enough sugars to act on
4. others...
There was no activity at all? What yeast (and kind of yeast) did you use?
Typically if you pitch yeast at a higher temperature it will produce off flavors but still ferment, i'm wondering if your yeast type/amount, or wort is the problem.

The comment by Hang Glider on warm to the touch makes sense. I probably did toast the first batch of yeast. I got fermentation after adding the second vial of German Lager yeast although it never developed krausen or any real indications of actvity. If shaken plenty of dissolved CO2 comes out of solution. The FG is 1.011 (1.04 or so to begin with) so I'm comfortable the starter fermented. The taste of the starter is fine as well. I'm inclined to go ahead and use it tomorrow but I do have concerns that I may be bringing off tastes, etc. to the main brew. Should I toss this starter and begin with fresh wort and yeast?

Hang Glider said:

Warm to the touch is NOT 80F

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I was thinking the same thing. 80F would NOT feel warm. I agree that it's likely that the temp was 100 or more. Go get yeast if you don't have any, just to be safe.

jcryan2 said:

...The taste of the starter is fine as well. I'm inclined to go ahead and use it tomorrow but I do have concerns that I may be bringing off tastes, etc. to the main brew. Should I toss this starter and begin with fresh wort and yeast?

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Why would you toss a starter that doesn't have off tastes, on the fear that you might be adding off tastes?

Seriously, relax. Measure twice, cut once.

jcryan2 said:

... I'm inclined to go ahead and use it tomorrow but I do have concerns that I may be bringing off tastes, etc. to the main brew. Should I toss this starter and begin with fresh wort and yeast?

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You could just chill the starter for a day or two, and decant the wort, thus only pitching primarily just the yeast.

I generally do decant the wort and pitch only a slurry. It's in the fridge chillin and brew day is tomorrow.

If the starter was 80 degrees your original yeast should've been fine. In all the times I've made a starter yeast I have never had Krausen form on top. If by shaking the starter you are releasing co2 then the yeast has started fermenting the wort. Another thing to keep in mind... lager yeast takes longer to start fermenting and it is slower. I wouldn't worry so much about activity in your current starter as I would be about did you make enough. It takes a larger starter for lagers than it does for ales.