I may be in big trouble?

Alright I think I may be experiencing some real trouble here. I am making a blue moon clone extract from AHS because I was short on time, resources, equipment etc. because im not brewing in my normal location. My problem is that I have no fermentation after exactly 72 hours. My primary has no krausen so I know I have no leaks . More importantly I am using a wyeast smack pack 3944 belgian wit strand which I have read is a slow starter(but not 72 hours slow) and I have kept it at 65 f constantly. I tried to rouse the yeast a little but didn't get too crazy for oxidation risk. I even tried moving it to my seconday fermenter room which I keep at around 70 and still nothing after 12 hours. As far as I know the wort was stirred enough and the the temp was around 73 when I pitched and hydrometer readings were right on. Im pretty much at a loss for the slow lag time here. Any suggestions because this thing is really busting my balls?

Did you stir in some yeast nutrient ? I've had several stuck fermentations that came alive with some yn. Did you rinse all the sanitizer out of the primary ? Was the wort chilled and aerated when you pitched ?

Finally this stuff started going. Almost 80 hours lag time. I'm going to have an interesting time with this yeast in the future I believe.

Thats a pretty long long lag time. How are you aerating your wort? I have found since I switched to an O2 set-up for aeration, my lag times have dropped drasticaly. down to less than 5 hours with some yeast strains.

Cheers

ChilliBrew said:

Finally this stuff started going. Almost 80 hours lag time. I'm going to have an interesting time with this yeast in the future I believe.

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Didn't you know that WYEAST stands for Will You Ever Actually Start on Time????!!!!????

Doesn't sound like you made a starter, right? The yeast would have had to do a ton of reproducing before they could get rolling. That coupled with it being a show starter may explain the long delay.

Your right. Stupidly I didn't use a starter on this strand but I can bet I will definitely be doing that next time. I may invest in a better aeration system too. 72 hours is just unacceptable. Nice WYEAST acronym too orpheus!