Need help with lager not fermenting

[primativeBREW]

Hey everyone. I brewed an Oktoberfest over the weekend I had trouble getting it cooled down to 54df so I kept it in my fermenting fridge over night. I made a 2L starter as well and put it in the fridge at the same time to get the pitching temp to 54 in my starter as well. I had read that for lagers you should pitch at lager temps so that's what I did. The next morning both the fermenter bucket and the yeast starter were at 54df so I swirled the starter and pitched. It has now been over 24 hours and I see absolutely no fermentation activity. Did I do something wrong? Any help is appreciated


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[giraffe]

Lagers take a bit longer. Dont panic yet. Did the starter show any activity?

 

[primativeBREW]

Ya I let the starter go for about a day and a half on my stir plate I had lots of activity for the first day and a good layer of yeast on the bottom when I took it out of the fridge to pitch


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[Rockn_M]

Based on the information provided it did everything correctly. It takes longer for lagers to show signs of fermentation. I wouldn't start to worry until after 72 hours.

 

[rekoob]

+1
Not time to worry... yet.
What type of yeast? what's the ideal temp range? If your on the low side you could bump the temp up a few degrees to the higher end to help it kick off and then after it starts to show activity bump it back down.

 

[primativeBREW]

I used WLP 820 Oktoberfest yeast. The recipe I used off beer smith said 54df for 2 weeks in primary. Then 3 days at 62 for a diacytle rest then lager at 34 for 30 days my fermenter is currently reading 54


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[stratslinger]

What was the OG? I suspect that a 2L starter was probably a fairly decent underpitch in a lager. Lagers take a LOT more yeast than ales of a similar gravity and volume, and underpitching may add to your lag time.

For reference, a buddy and I did an experiment a couple years back with a traditional bock recipe. I made a Mr Malty recommended sized starter, he pitched a smack pack (obviously significantly more of an underpitch than you may have). The OG was in the 1.070 range, and my starter was stepped up from 2L to almost 1.5 gallons. With that big a starter, I had a roughly 7 hour lag time. My buddy had a 3 day lag time - and that was with taking his fermenter out of the ferment chamber and allowing it to warm up a bit after the first 30 hours or so. The kicker? You could barely tell the two finished beers apart - and they were both GOOD!

 

[primativeBREW]

My OG was 1.054. Should I pitch more yeast? Or just wait it out


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[beerdragon]

I plugged Yeast Calculator with your numbers, assuming you made a 5 gallon batch - a 2L would be a slight underpitch, anywhere between 30 to 50 billion cells. Just sit tight and let it go for a couple more days, then take a gravity reading. Lager yeast are bottom fermenting, I had a couple lagers that had no krausen. It probably will miss the FG, due to the underpitch.

 

[kstiglich]

JUST WAIT...
I just pitched a similar one on sunday. OG 1.054, but my starter was 1.9L of water and 250mg of DME running for 36 hours on a stir plate.
I pitched both at 53º but did not see any activity in 12 hours, so I warm it to 59º and it started in the following 6 hours.... then I moved it back to 53º and it is working great!... Just be patient and warm it a little until it start making a little krausen in the upper side of your beer.

Good Luck..

This is the image of my carboy before yeast started working;

And this is the image on the same day (yesterday) 12 hours later;

Regards,

 

[kstiglich]

I just figured out that you use liquid yeast.... in that case, you must be under pitched... I used dry yeast that contains 200 billions cells per pack, and yours have only 100 billion cells per pack, so you under pitch it by 50%.

I am not sure if you should wait for the yeast to start, because it will ferment but will stress and produce some off-flavors... or it is better to keep it cold and run to help your yeast with more yeast and rehydrate it because you do not have time to use again a stir plate....

Any expert with this kind of issues please advice!

 

[primativeBREW]

Well due to a mistake on my part I only ended up with 3.5 gallons ( I under sparged) still hit my numbers though am I still under pitched with a 2L starter?


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[beerdragon]

So your fermenter only has 3.5 gal of wort? You didn't top off?

 

[primativeBREW]

No did not top it off I hit my gravity numbers and didn't want to dilute it any.


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[stratslinger]

In that case - so long as your yeast wasn't more than a month old, you actually were either right on target, or even slightly overpitched (which is just fine). Give it a little more time. If the fermenter doesn't show signs of activity after 48 hours or so, warm it up some to see if that helps, and if you still have nothing after a total of 72 hours, consider pitching more yeast at that point.

Also, so you're not guessing about starter sizes and such, get familiar with yeastcalculator.com - it's a very useful tool!

 

[SpeedYellow]

Sometimes with lagers you do everything right, yet this happens. It must be somehow related to the yeast health, and likely due to the inherently delicate nature of liquid yeast. That's why I'm moving towards dry yeast wherever possible.

 

[primativeBREW]

Well I finally got some fermentation activity going. I raised the temp up to 58 this morning and when I got home from work I had some airlock bubbles, I just lowered the temp controller back down to 54 and will check he gravity in about 2 weeks. Thanks for the advice from everyone, I was completely oblivious to the yeast calculator and will be using it in the future to make sure I'm pitching enough. Thanks again everyone


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[primativeBREW]

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick update to ease some concerns others might have if they had or have a similar thing happening to them.

Last time I posted I had some airlock activity starting and lowered my temp controller back to 54 for the remainder of the fermentation. Once my fermenter got back down in temp I noticed the airlock activity stopped but the star san in the air lock was still gathering in the out portion of the airlock.

I chalked this batch up as a loss ( was still going to keg and drink if drinkable) and try again in a couple of weeks this time making a much larger starter. I was curious this morning and decided to crack the lid open and see if anything was going on or if I had any krausen at all. Boy was I surprised when I cracked the lid and saw a good 1.5-2 inches of krausen on the top. ( didn't take a picture and don't want to open it up again)

Being fairly new to brewing I was always use to lots of bubbles and activity in the airlock to confirm fermentation was happening. This is my first batch with hardly any outside confirmation of fermentation.

If anyone is having similar things happen to their brew and are concerned please listen to the people on this site. Just relax and let it do it's thing. I'm still learning the patience portion of this hobby and hope it will be worth it in about a months time.

Here are some pictures showing the airlock liquid pushed to the output portion hopefully you can make it out




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[beerdragon]

Glad it didn't turn out to a loss! Let us know how it turns out

 

[shtoive87]

From what I hear, wlp820 is super slow on the first generation, so that probably didn't help things. If you reuse the yeast, it will probably be quicker.


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