Oktoberfest / Stalled Yeast?

On Friday I brewed an Oktoberfest. I put it in a better bottle carboy and 3 piece airlock in my fridge with temp at an avarage of 40 deg on bottom of fridge and 50 on top (2 seperate thermometers). I left to enjoy US Labor day for the weekend and came back on Monday afternoon to find the yeast sitting on the bottom of the carboy. The air lock was empty. I added more liquid to the airlock and it slowly drained into the carboy.

If I change the airlock do you think if I repitch the yeast I can save it or do you think it is behond hope?

deltabrews said:

On Friday I brewed an Oktoberfest. I put it in a better bottle carboy and 3 piece airlock in my fridge with temp at an avarage of 40 deg on bottom of fridge and 50 on top (2 seperate thermometers). I left to enjoy US Labor day for the weekend and came back on Monday afternoon to find the yeast sitting on the bottom of the carboy. The air lock was empty. I added more liquid to the airlock and it slowly drained into the carboy.

If I change the airlock do you think if I repitch the yeast I can save it or do you think it is behond hope?

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It sounds like the beer dropped in temperature and sucked in the airlock fluid. What's the temperature of the beer now?

I would say it is around 45 deg F.

I am thinking of connecting a hose and growler to the carboy.

deltabrews said:

I would say it is around 45 deg F.

I am thinking of connecting a hose and growler to the carboy.

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Depending on the yeast strain, 45 degrees may be too cool for fermentation. You really need to have some sort of thermometer or something on the fermenter to try to maintain the yeast strain's optimum fermentation temperature. Otherwise, it's just a guess as to the temperature of the beer.

What do you mean "slowly drained"? Like, you could see it happening? If so you have some kind of leak!

It might ferment at 45 if you pitched a huge amount of yeast. Really, there's no benefit to going quite that low--I'm a big fan of hitting the bottom of the temp range but not to the extent of causing problems. As Yoops says, some (most?) lager yeasts just won't work at that temp.

What would the purpose of the hose/growler be? Blowoff? You certainly won't need one unless your beer is within two inches of the top of your fermenter. Lagers don't ferment very actively at proper temperatures (i.e. around 50).