1st lager hasen't started yet

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S_carve

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its my first lager attempt and i was making labatt recipe, i used wyeast pilsner yeast and pitched at about 68 degrees then put it right into the fridge which is set a 50
this was brewed on sunday afternoon and have had no activity except for everything settleing to the bottom, no air lock activity at all and its now 4 days exact

any advice?


i did what Papazian said and "don't worry have a homebrew" but you can consume a lot of homebrew in 4 days
 
You might want to consider taking it out of the fridge and let it warm up gradually to 68 or so, maybe even give it a swirl or 2. If it does not take off after 48 hours at near 70F then I would repitch.
 
pitched the whole package, i dont think fermentation ever took place so there shouldn't be any gravity change

the only thing i can think of is that i used a new clearing agent that the shop sold me, he said it works great maybe too good its called whirlfloc irish moss pellets, one tablet is good for 25gal and i had asked him if you could use too much and he said dont worry about it, even though i used only half a tab

could this be the problem? cause it all settled to the bottom of the carboy within a day
 
S_carve said:
the only thing i can think of is that i used a new clearing agent that the shop sold me, he said it works great maybe too good its called whirlfloc irish moss pellets

Whirlfloc works fine, it's one in 5 gallons. I use it all the time without problems, it's basically the same as Irish moss.
 
Any idea what the condition of the yeast was? How old was it? Was it kept in cool places throughout its life? It sounds like the yeast was no good. I'm assuming you didn't make a yeast starter...but did you at least smack the smackpack? Or was it just a propegator?

You'll probably have to repitch. The longest lag time I've had was 3 days, and that was harrowing.
 
Sounds like you shocked your yeast before they had a chance to do anything.
If you pitched a liquid yeast without a starter being made or if you pitched dry yeast by sprinkling it ontop of your wort, chances are it will take a while to get going.
In the future when using liquid yeast in a lager, make a 1 gallon starter and have it at fermenting temps, and pitch into wort at fermenting temps. Pitching lager yeast warm will cause esters, fusels and dms to form that the yeast might not be able to reabsorb, and it will carry to the finished beer.

Did you aerate your wort?

And where did you get the Labatt clone? I'd be interested in that.
 
well the yeast was from a LHBS and it was fresh according to the date. i smacked the pack and it sat out for about 6 hrs and the pack had swelled up alot before i pitched it. I did not make a starter, but i have never done it before. I aerated the wort as best as i could.

I have had it sitting out at about 65 degrees for the past 2 days and still nothing. Tonight i tried to give it a few swirls to attempt to wake it up a little.

This was a recipe from Brew Your Own magazine they had 150 clone brew special addition
 
well guys it finally happened almost a week later, we have fermentation!!!!

it took sitting out in 65+ temps for 3 days and several stirs at day 2 and finally it is fermenting

now i put it into the fridge at 50 degrees, is there anything i should look for or could have maybe gone bad?
 
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