So I think I underpitched

I made a kolsch with wlp029 and wanted to reuse the yeast for edwort's oktoberfest ale. I usually wash yeast and reuse it but I thought I would just use the slurry since I was kegging one day and brewing the next. I have never done this and was going to just pitch the whole thing onto the kolsch cake. Then I got reading about over pitching and that you don't need all of the yeast. I poured about 1/4 of the cake into a mason jar and refrigerated it. The OG of the kolsch was 1.040 and the oktoberfest was 1.068. It has been 18 hours and no activity. Should I wait it out or try and get more yeast? My LHBS sucks they keep their dry yeast at room temperature and any liquid yeast they have they is probably expired. So I can try and get crappy yeast today or order online and wait a week, or just see what happens. I also have some washed us05 that I could use but I don't think that would be very good for this style.

I would wait 2-3 days and check the gravity

I know... patience

If you visit mrmalty.com and use the calculator, it suggests for 1.068 wort, to pitch 110 ml of slurry (with moderate thickness and trub included). Thats about 0.4 cups. If you pitched 1/4 of an entire cake, you might have pitched more than you needed! I wouldn't worry about it. You probably had more than enough.

I have a steam beer going with 2112 and its not showing activity - I think my lid isn't sealed well. I checked gravity and its going down. Its a fairly cold ferment, so its not that vigorous. I imagine your Kolsch yeast is also a bit cool. I'd check the gravity if your'e worried, but I bet all is well in yeast-land.

RDWHAHB!

That kolsch yeast, especially at low temps, will putt a long slowly. Don't be surprised not to see much activity until the headspace is filled with CO2.

I am trusting you guys and trying to be patient. The kolsch I made I fermented at the same temps and it had activity in less than 12 hours of course it was fresh yeast from a starter. I am thinking maybe since I let it sit in the primary for so long the viability is low. Maybe I didn't get enough yeast maybe I got mostly trub or hops although the recipe didn't have much for hops in it and I strain my wort out of the kettle. I'll check the gravity in a few days just to be sure.

BWN said:

I am trusting you guys and trying to be patient. The kolsch I made I fermented at the same temps and it had activity in less than 12 hours of course it was fresh yweast from a starter. I am thinking maybe since I let it sit in the primary for so long the viability is low. Maybe I didn't get enough yeast maybe I got mostly trub or hops although the recipe didn't have much for hops in it and I strain my wort out of the kettle. I'll check the gravity in a few days just to be sure.

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How did you get the cake off the primary? Did you just scoop some up or did you swirl it around until well-mixed and then pour off what you needed?

Either way if you got pretty much everything that was in there, you got plenty of yeast.

I swirled it a little then poured it through a funnel into a mason jar.

BWN said:

I swirled it a little then poured it through a funnel into a mason jar.

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The yeast is generally on the top, so as long as you swirled good (how much total do you think you got from the cake, volume-wise?) you should be fine.

I filled the mason jar full, after everything settled there was about an inch of beer on top. I think it was a 1 cup mason jar whatever the middle size jar is.

I'm sure you're fine. Probably just a bad lid seat or something. Wait a week, if nothing, pop the lid open carefully and look for signs of life, ie. nasty gooey krausen. I'm sure it will turn-out.

I popped the top off and there is definitely a krausen.

You're good to go, I have this happen randomly either I have a faulty lid or bucket, can't figure which

This happened once before, I thought nothing was going on and I took a gravity reading(imagine that) and fermentation was done.