bad yeast?

[AndyHannas]

i brewed a spiced cranberry beer last night and pitched my WLP320 about 19 hours ago and havent seen a single sign of activity yet. im used to using dried yeast and seeing fermentation within 6 or 8 hours but i do remember the White Labs stuff taking a bit longer sometimes.

so im wondering if my yeast is no good, if the cranberries created too acidic an environment, if the pectic enzyme i added killed the yeast or if i am just being impatient and liquid yeasts need a bit longer.

so how long should i wait before i give up on this yeast and pitch new? also, if i do wind up pitching a new yeast, can i just add it right into my fermenter or should i siphon it off the sediment to get it off the dead yeast.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

I've had liquid yeast take around 3-4 days to start in past batches. It all depends upon the amount of yeast you pitched, the viability of that yeast, the temperature of fermentation, etc. Let it go for a little bit and see what happens.

 

[lumpher]

for that yeast with cranberry (it may need to build up viability), wait another 12, then worry

 

[devilishprune]

What was the gravity of your beer? If you just pitched a vial of yeast then you probably underpitched unless your gravity was like 1.040 or under.

Have you taken hydrometer readings? Those are the end all be all of signs of fermentation. Otherwise, don't do anything unless nothing happens for 72 hours. More than likely you're fine.

 

[mikeysab]

How big of a starter did you make? Gravity? what're you fermenting in? Temperature? there's a lot more to beer than just pitching yeast and waiting a couple of weeks.