Dead yeast?

I made an Oktoberfest yesterday and used a White Labs Kolsch yeast. Been 24 hours and absolutely zero sign of any activity. I know it can take up to 48 hours or more there is just nothing happening. Shake it up and everything. My question is if I got nothing going on tomorrow should I simply get some more yeast and dump it in?

My experience with 90% of the white labs yeasts I've used is if you don't make a starter, expect it to take a long time to show visible signs of fermentation. I underlined visible, because its probably doing its work, you just can't tell from the airlock.

I once waited 72 hours with WLP001 to make the airlock bubble once. Beer turned out just fine.

What was OG, volume and how much did you pitch? It might just be that they have to populate your wort first if it was big, and then take off.

5 gallons, 1.060, 1 vial Kolsch yeast

Iceman6409 said:

5 gallons, 1.060, 1 vial Kolsch yeast

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That's not a lager yeast- it's considered a "hybrid". kolsch yeast should be above 62 degrees, so make sure it's not too cool. 65 degrees is ideal for that yeast strain.

In any case, with only one vial in a 1.060 batch, that is underpitching by quite a bit. Consult mrmalty.com's yeast pitching calculator, or yeastcalc.com to see how much yeast is optimal for pitching without a starter. Using the "hybrid" option in yeast calc, and assuming pretty fresh yeast, without a starter you'd need about three packages of yeast.

Ok we are coming up on day three today and still absolutely no signs of activity whatsoever. Even when I shake up the carboy there is noting at all in the airlock moving. So my question is if this is still the same situation tomorrow should I simply go get some more yeast and dump it in?

Have you taken a gravity reading yet? If you do and the gravity is dropping, the you may have an air leak that is allowing the CO2 to escape rather than bubble through the airlock

I had the same problem with yeast once. I waited four days and nothing happened. I ended up just pitching a new yest and in twelve hours there was visible signs of fermntation