No fermentation after 3 days

Hey there everyone. 2nd batch brewer here and I have a pilsner that I am brewing as an ale as my second batch. It it 3 days out and my OG reading was at 1.042 or 1.044 on Monday when I brewed the wort. It is a Brewers Best Kit and there was no sign of air lock movement from the start. I checked it after 2 days and it looks exactly like the original wort. Today I checked again and took a reading and it actually reads at 1.047 today with no signs of fermenting in the primary bucket. It is a new bucket and I sanitized everything. Any suggestions?

First, thanks for taking a gravity reading and not going solely by "Airlock" activity. What kind of yeast did you pitch originally? Dry/Liquid. Did you make a starter or activate the dry yeast? The higher gravity could be due to a change in temp from you original reading. Back to the question...I would re-pitch more yeast to see if you can get it going again.

dry yeast was used straight from the packet, but i kept it in the fridge before use. Not sure of type of yeast although it was Brewers Best lager yeast.
In my first batch I used the exact same steps and it is looking great 2nd week in the primary.

What temp are you fermenting at?

Unless it is a known brand of yeast with a date on it I'd never use the yeast provided with a kit, no telling how old it is. The ones I used to get were always insufficient as far as pitching rates. Since your hydrometer is telling you that nothing is happening I'd go buy a packet of some good dry yeast, rehydrate and pitch it.

samc said:

Unless it is a known brand of yeast with a date on it I'd never use the yeast provided with a kit, no telling how old it is. The ones I used to get were always insufficient as far as pitching rates. Since your hydrometer is telling you that nothing is happening I'd go buy a packet of some good dry yeast, rehydrate and pitch it.

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Agreed.

I shook the primary around for a bit and pitched a second dose of yeast after work today and it was working away almost immediately. Thank you to all of you for the helpful tips. I also have to thank my local Brew Shop, The BrewMentor for all of their advice.

i did a brewers best pilsner. they have brewferm lager yeast in them. each kit will have a different yeast just for the type of beer your making.

the kit i did turned out amazingly great!!! i'm just going off what i sampled when i was bottling it, but i was really happy with how it turned out. i was happy enough to buy another kit and am waiting to brew it again. i have 7 more kits before i reach that one again!!!

The problem is, you said you are fermenting a pilsner as an ale. I'm assuming you are fermenting near room temp around 70? You're using a lager yeast, which most likely only works at temps much lower than 70. Re-pitch any type of ale yeast.