6 month old ingredients and a yeast question.

Evening all,
About six months ago I got the ingredients to do a clone of New Belgium 1554. About a week after I bought them, I got a new job in a new state and had to move. Well I finally got around to brewing and was wondering if I could get some pointers.

Ingredients
4lbs Pale Malt Extract, liquid
2lbs DME light
11.5grams Saflager S-23 Lager Yeast
1oz Hallertauer 4.7 - 30 min prior to end of boil
1oz Northern Brewer 8.0 - 10 min till end
1/2 oz Hallertauer 4.7 at end of boil.

A BAG OF GRAINS
I had the guys over at The HomeBrew Store in Springfield, MO select the proportions. Unfortunately, I cannot find the receipt, nor my folder of notes.

Procedure:
Added grains to grain bag, added it to brewpot with 3gal water.
Removed grains at 160deg.
Sparged grains with 1/2 gal of water that I boiled in a separate pot at the beginning of the boil. Guestimate 150Deg.
Resumed boil, when boil was rolling good, I added the malt extracts.
30 min into boil I re-hydrated and primed the yeast.
Unsure if the yeast took off. When I went to pitch the yeast, it didn't seem very active. I used aprox 105º water, now thinking this was to warm for lager yeast.
15 min left, I added the wort cooler.
Completed boil and cooled to aprox 90º
I went to rack into my 6.5 gal and saw a crack, so I quick cleaned and sanitized my 5 gal carboy.
Now it's 5 hours after pitching the yeast and there is still no activity.

My question is, is the yeast no good, or is there hope yet?

Regards,
Mon

Happened with a banana wine I made. Recommend pitching some fresh yeast

Fermentation can take up to 72hours before showing signs if activity. Give it more time before panicking.

Here is the info on the yeast from the manufacturer.

http://www.fermentis.com/fo/pdf/HB/EN/Saflager_S-23_HB.pdf

It's a dry yeast, so there's nothing to worry about there unless you stored it at 90 degrees.

I just did a lager with that yeast, and it took two days with 2 packs to show activity. Since it's my first lager, I don't have the experience to know if lagers take a little longer to get going. However, my research indicated you need to pitch about 2x as much as with ales and aerate very well.

Once you get sulfur smells, you know your lager yeast is going.

So, what temp did you pitch at? Are you cooling it down to about 55 deg?

@Gil: I was planning on getting to the homebrew store this afternoon when I read your post. Good thing, it saved me a trip
@iaefebs: Thank you for that information, I guess I should have looked there first. But it's comforting to know that I winged it correctly!
@kyle: Storage was good. I only had the one pack is what was really worrying me. The nearest store to me is an hour away, so it's not such a quick trip.

So that being said, when I checked on it after I got home this evening, it was happily bubbling away. Slowly, but it was going. I didn't notice any sulfur smells though. But maybe because I am fermenting at lager temps? The room is steady at about 72º, and when I pitched the wort was about 90-ish. I did aerate well though. I placed my primary on the floor in front of the counter where I had used my wort chiller to cool it down and kept the siphon hose at the neck of the carboy.

So now that I am down to only two carboys, I have to plan my next batch a bit differently. I want to rack this batch to the secondary, but if I brew another batch this week end, I'll need something to take right to the keg after the primary. I'm thinking a nice pumpkin beer for Thanksgiving

Thanks all,
Mon

Oh and Great news! I found my grain list!
Belgian Special B Malt - 1lb
Chocolate Malt - 0.5lb
Black Patent Malt - 0.25Lb

Lager yeast requires cooler temperatures. It should be fermenting at 50° or so. Also, one week might not be enough to finish fermentation. The only way to tell if it is finished is to take a gravity reading then another two or three days later. If the readings are the same (and within FG range) you should be able to rack over.