I forgot to mention that I did check the date and I had another couple months before expiration.
I did not take a hydrometer reading. Instead, I noted that were was no air moving through the airlock. I checked to make sure the lid was closed too. After four days of nothing I opened the fermenter. There were no bubbles or even signs of bubbles being there (usually the hops and gunk line the side of the primary once I've opened it). Additionally, I threw in a pack of muntons in after the four days and within 8 hours the fermentation took off like crazy and air was moving through the airlock.
So you declared your yeast dead because of a silly not bubbling airlock...sorry but more than likely your yeast and beer was fine.....
Well, you jumped the gun, and used a Faulty "sign of fermentation."
I don't see anything by what you are saying to indicate that your fermentation actually wasn't. All I see is that your airlock wasn't bubbling, and that you didn't take a gravity reading before panicking and pitched more yeast.
BUT without a gravity reading all you are telling me is that your airlock wasn't bubbling....
That is NOT the same thing as a fermentation happening.
Whether it's in a conical, a bucket, or a carboy, it's the same thing.
An airlock is a VENT, a VALVE to release excess co2, nothing more.
If it's not bubbling it just means that there no excess co2 to be vented out.
In your case, more than likely hadn't even started yet, or that it was working fine, and
just didn't need to vent any co2 yet.
A beer may ferment perfectly fine without a single blip in the airlock.
That's why you need to take a gravity reading to know how your fermentation is going, NOT go by airlocks. The most important tool you can use is a hydrometer. It's the only way you will truly know when your beer is ready...airlock bubbles and other things are faulty.
The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with
your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read,
Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right
diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....
Thinking about "doing anything" without taking a hydrometer reading is tantamount to the doctor deciding to cut you open without running any diagnostic tests....Taking one look at you and saying, "Yeah I'm going in." You would really want the doctor to use all means to properly diagnose what's going on?
Next time, wait 72 hours, and then take a grav reading, what happens to 99% of the nervous new brewers like you, is that when they open their bucket to take the reading, they see a beautiful krauzen on top of the beer,
which means that fermentation is indeed happening.
Yeasts just don't "NOT WORK" these days. That's an old idea from 30 years ago, not the reality these days. Given enough time the yeast does what it needs to do.
I am going to give you my standard rant about how, for the most part, the idea of "bad yeast" is really bogus....
Of god knows how many batches of beer I have made....
I have never had fermentation not start, or a beer not turn out ok, and I have never ever ever had to add more yeast to a beer.
Except for infecting a starter due to poor sanitization, it really really is hard for yeast NOT to do what they do naturally.
That's how we can make a huge starter from the dregs of a bottle of beer...we let the viable (living) cells reproduce, and we feed them incrementally, and they continue to reproduce.
Seriously most LHBS know enough about what they are doing in terms of proper yeast storage, same with suppliers, it doesn't take a genius these days to know how to stick liquid (and dry yeasts usually) in a fridge, and ship in bulk in a styrofoam cooler.
We're talking billion dollar corporations (the yeast labs, and that's what they are LABS) and they aren't going to risk their rep by letting their suppliers and stores that carry their stuff , handle it improperly.
Besides...Yeast IS hardier than most newish brewers wanna give them props for...I mean You can't say that THIS YEAST was stored "properly" and yet, they managed to make a batch of beer with it.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-08/ff_primordial_yeast
If we can make beer with that....even the tiniest viable glop in a barely smacked pack, is going to work as well.
Gang I can't say this enough;
Unless you bought liguid yeast through the mail in the heat of summer, or added your yeast into boiling wort. your fermentation will happen.
Yeast just
don't not work anymore, that is an idea that came from the bad old days before homebrewing was legalized in 1978 when yeast came in hard cakes that travelled in hot cargo holds of ships ...And then sat under the lid of blue ribbon malt extract for god knows how long on grocery stores shelves.
But since 1978 yeast science has been ongoing and the yeasts of today, wet OR dry are going to work in 99.9% of the situations we have, if you give them the time to do so.
But every noob who starts an "my yeast is dead thread" just really pertpetuates a fear that has come from way back then, they got it from Papazain and other brew books written
Thirty or more years ago, and were told horror stories of those yeasts, and it influenced their writing, which influence nervous noob brewers as well. AND he influenced Palmer and other book writers, who passed that yeast doubt onto generations of brewers.
And then, most of the time, you new brewers then freak each other out!!!! You see an "infection" or "Not fermenting" thread title, or 10 on a given day
and most of you don't even read the story behind it...you just see a dozen yeast is f-d up threads...and then believe my yeast has the potential to be f-d up.
But as the guy who answers those questions on a daily basis and finds out that no hydro reading was taken, nor has it been 72 hours, and THEY (not you) ARE going by airlock bubbling- AND when they do take a hydro reading or pop the bucket lid, they see that there was a krausen....and most of the time they actually post back, to say they were being paranoid, and fermentation DID happen.
But to someone who actually doesn't follow up on those threads, they think that yeast is so damn fragile....when it is the brewer's nerves that are.
But
Unless you bought yeast through the mail in the heat of summer, or dumped it in boiling wort 99% of the time your yeast will do it's job...no matter what the title of many threads APPEAR to say.
Yeast handling and growing is a science, AND a BUSINESS, EVEN DRY YEAST GANG, they are all grown in labs, not fly by night operations (that's why the whole argument about dry being sub-par to liquid is really idiotic)..and with the internet, and books, and magazines, including this months BYO btw, even the most inbred LHBS employee SHOULD and probably does know how to properly handle and store yeast prior to selling it to you.