S-04 dead?

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AviatorTroy

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Brewed a Berliner W last week, let it sour for about four days with laco, then boiled Sunday night and pitched Monday morning. So 2 and a half days have gone by and NO airlock activity, no krausen, no nothing.

Did not use a starter, (it says you don't have to)

I pitched at about 70 and may have let the wort get down a little low (58 or so) but its in the mid 60s now.

I have only used dry yeast a couple of times but don't ever remember it taking this long to start. Now I'm out of town. I have a packet of SA-05 in the fridge for emergencies, if there's no activity by this evening I may ask the girl to throw it in there. What do you guys think?
 
How about taking a grav. reading? Dry yeast is almost NEVER dead. It's all I use.
 
Oh yea, sorry forgot to mention that I did take a gravity reading and it did drop a few points, but I understand that could be from the lacto as well.

(After some thought, I did re pitch some more lacto after the boil with the yeast, in the hopes that from what I've read of that style, that it will continue to sour in the bottles later as it ages)
 
Im having problems right now with my SA-05 and no airlock activity either. I'll be pitching some emergency slurry I have, its a bit old but should help.
 
Brewed a Berliner W last week, let it sour for about four days with laco, then boiled Sunday night and pitched Monday morning. So 2 and a half days have gone by and NO airlock activity, no krausen, no nothing.

Did not use a starter, (it says you don't have to)

I pitched at about 70 and may have let the wort get down a little low (58 or so) but its in the mid 60s now.

I have only used dry yeast a couple of times but don't ever remember it taking this long to start. Now I'm out of town. I have a packet of SA-05 in the fridge for emergencies, if there's no activity by this evening I may ask the girl to throw it in there. What do you guys think?

From what I've read usually you pitch your brewers yeast then pitch your bugs, maybe I'm wrong but I'd think that once the bugs take hold they would eat anything else you put in there before it had time to get moving.
 
Oh yea, sorry forgot to mention that I did take a gravity reading and it did drop a few points, but I understand that could be from the lacto as well.

(After some thought, I did re pitch some more lacto after the boil with the yeast, in the hopes that from what I've read of that style, that it will continue to sour in the bottles later as it ages)

Cool. Well, I have no exp. with sour beers, so I don't have anything furthur to add except that I use S-04 and 05 for 95% of the beers I brew, and I never had any issues. Good luck...:mug:
 
I pitched S-04 on a batch Saturday and it was really slow for the first few days. It finally took off yesterday morning and is bubbling steadily now, but that's the first time I've had that issue with S-04 and I've used it a bunch.
 
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