Nothing changing

I am attempting a lager fermentation for the first time. This is also my second home brew attempt. First one wasn't horrible, but could always get better. This second attempt has been in the fermenter now for 36 hours and has had zero activity. My first brew was active within 6-8 hours. If fermentation does not begin what should I try next? Can I pitch again on top of that?

How do you know there is no activity? Are you judging it based on the airlock or taking actual readings?

Airlock and watching for krausen. I had planned on taking readings until I broke my brand new hydrometer. Brew stores are too far away to buy a replacement right now.

Check to see if your fermentor is sealed up tight. What temp are you fermenting at? What yeast?

Get a new hydrometer asap.

DavidBarger said:

Airlock and watching for krausen. I had planned on taking readings until I broke my brand new hydrometer. Brew stores are too far away to buy a replacement right now.

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As I'm sure you'll read 1000 times on here, air locks and krausen are not sure signs of fermentation. Sometimes you don't see either, but the beer still ferments. Only way to know for sure is the hydrometer .

First off, don't worry too much until at least 3 days has passed since pitching your yeast. It can take up to 72 hours before you see any signs of krausen, has done for me and actually took slightly longer on one of my brews but it still came out OK.

Is this brew using lager yeast or an ale yeast with a lager kit?
if this is a lager yeast and you are pitching at lager fermentation temps that would also suggest the possibility of a rather long lag time. If you pitched the right amount of healthy yeast for the batch you should be fine. If you under pitched it could take longer to start and might stress the yeast a bit possibly leading to some flavours that may not be desirable in a lager.

Using the safeale s-23 lager yeast. Temps where it is stored are low 50s during this time of year. I will double check that it has a proper seal. My worry was that I may have under pitched and did not have enough healthy yeast. Hopefully I will get some scientific data and know more about what is going on without watching for activity. Thanks for advice

Yeah, depending on the gravity and volume of your wort you'd probably have needed more than one packet of Safale S-23. Did you rehydrate the yeast or just sprinkle on top of the wort?
Do a search for and try out the yeast pitching calculator on mrmalty.com to see if you did, indeed, under-pitch. Will come in handy for future brewing projects.