finally seeing activity after a week

[hunterbrooksfarm]

Last week I brewed up a German Oktoberfest from a kit Ive had over a year. Just never got around to brewing it with so many other things to do. Long story short followed the directions to a T, pitched yeast oxiginated and set it down in the basement at 54deg. Directions said it may take 48hrs to see fermentation. Well 48hrs came and went with nothing. 96hrs and nothing, so I brought it up to 70deg for a day stirred it up to kick the yeast and saw some activity so I put it back down to 54deg. At the 7day mark I've got great activity, so I'll be reflecting SG next week to see where its at before going to the clarifying /secondary for 2more weeks.

 

[duboman]

So the kit was a year old, did you at least use fresh yeast? Did you make a starter? Was it a true lager strain yeast?

If it was a true lager yeast and you did not make a starter then you severely under pitched your beer and if it was a year old there would have been almost no viability to whatever cells were still in the pack. That would explain taking a week to get going

 

[hunterbrooksfarm]

As per directions of the brewers best kit it said to pitch directly into the wort. It was a lager strain of yeast. I even found the receipt in the box, bought on clearance for $22.95 so its an experiment more or less. I'm surprised that there was any viability of yeast cells after a year of storage. I may try my hand at washing yeast and storing ir for a later batch.