I brewed my third batch on Tuesday. It used Wyeast 2035 (lager) yeast. Other than my OG ending up a little low there were no problems with the brewing process. I pitched two packs of yeast in my 6 gallon fermenter with 5.5 gallons of wort.
After 24 hours there was absolutely no airlock activity so I sanitized my wine thief and checked the gravity. No change confirmed that there had been no yeast activity. I thought maybe the yeast had got too hot in the front seat of my truck coming back from the LHBS (I live in Texas and it's still hot here).
So I made another trip to the LHBS and bought 2 more packs of 2035 and pitched them too. The dates on the first 2 packs and the last 2 packs was the same so I figure they came in the same shipment to the LHBS. So now my 5.5 gallons of wort had 4 packs of 2035.
It has now been 36 hours since I pitched the 3rd and 4th packs and there has not been any activity at all. Nada. Zero.
The temperature of the carboy is at 70 degrees (I was going to put it in my fermentation chamber once I saw activity and lower the temp).
I used starsan to clean the carboy, just like my first two batches
So what went wrong here? Did the LHBS have a bad shipment of yeast? Is there some way I can confirm that I didn't do something wrong?
I'm thinking about pitching a pack of dry yeast just to see if I get any activity that way. Is that the best way to confirm that the first 4 packs of yeast were bad. Can I buy another pack of liquid yeast from a different source and pitch that and save my brew?
I'm assuming that the batch is bad now that it has 4 packs of inactive yeast in it.
Suggestions please.
After 24 hours there was absolutely no airlock activity so I sanitized my wine thief and checked the gravity. No change confirmed that there had been no yeast activity. I thought maybe the yeast had got too hot in the front seat of my truck coming back from the LHBS (I live in Texas and it's still hot here).
So I made another trip to the LHBS and bought 2 more packs of 2035 and pitched them too. The dates on the first 2 packs and the last 2 packs was the same so I figure they came in the same shipment to the LHBS. So now my 5.5 gallons of wort had 4 packs of 2035.
It has now been 36 hours since I pitched the 3rd and 4th packs and there has not been any activity at all. Nada. Zero.
The temperature of the carboy is at 70 degrees (I was going to put it in my fermentation chamber once I saw activity and lower the temp).
I used starsan to clean the carboy, just like my first two batches
So what went wrong here? Did the LHBS have a bad shipment of yeast? Is there some way I can confirm that I didn't do something wrong?
I'm thinking about pitching a pack of dry yeast just to see if I get any activity that way. Is that the best way to confirm that the first 4 packs of yeast were bad. Can I buy another pack of liquid yeast from a different source and pitch that and save my brew?
I'm assuming that the batch is bad now that it has 4 packs of inactive yeast in it.
Suggestions please.