Effects of delayed innoculation?

I brewed a Koelsch on Saturday on my new keggle and turkey fryer. The brew went swimmingly, or so I thought. Lounging outside in a deck chair drinking a beer is a much better way to while away the brew day than pacing the kitchen and steaming up the house.

I used a buddy's Immersion chiller and got the beer to about 80 and couldn't get it much lower, so I let it sit for bit and pitched a vial of White Labs yeast. Anyway, fast forward to Wednesday, No activity in the carboy whatsoever, gravity steady at 1.50, no airlock activity.

When I bough the ingredients the kid (I'm getting old) at the shop said they had had a problem with their freezer and the yeast all froze in their display fridge. He went to the back to grab a vial of 0029. When I headed back to the store on Wednesday they gave me a new vial free, and today fermentation is going full force.

My question is, other than risk of contamination (I star-san-ed the **** out of everything) are there ill effects of waiting so long to have good yeast pitched?

So long as everything was nice and sanitized, I think you should be fine.

There are plenty of people who do "no chill" brewing, where they just let the wort cool down naturally (w/o a wort chiller) before pitching. It seems like the same principles would be in effect here.

Brewed Saturday, pitched Thursday; 5 days.

Risky, but you may be OK. You cooled down quickly so you didn't make an incubator of your pot.

Next time, make a starter, that will tell you if the yeast is viable before pitching. If a starter is too much trouble, use dry.

4 days, but I'm pretty sure it makes no odds.

Good advice on the starter . . . I think that is probably my next investment. . .

Is there a simple, cheap way to get started on starters without a stir plate?

I hate to be "this guy", but I did have a batch become infected from sitting for 3 days before fermentation began...now I use starters for everything and haven't had a single batch sit longer than a few hours before getting activity.

Just use a growler you have laying aorund and some alluminum foil. I use a stir plate now, but didn't for my first few and they worked great. Stir plate helps, but certainly not necessary...

altenmuenster said:

Is there a simple, cheap way to get started on starters without a stir plate?

Click to expand...

As mentioned above just use a growler and give it a swirl every time you walk by. For that matter tell everyone in your house to give it swirl every time they walk by too and you'll be good to go in no time.

I will say that I was in a surplus electronics store the other day and between old fans and hard drive magnets the biggest expense of a "proper" stir plate is the flask (which is why I use a growler).

Looks like I'll be starting off with the poor man's version.

I have a hard drive and some computer parts hanging around here, I'll look into DIYing something later.