No yeast activity yet! Any thoughts?

[naivenavila]

Hello fellas. I'm new to this forum thing and glad I came it across it because it looks like I can get a lot of useful information from a lot of knowledgable people. I'm new to home brewing and definitely have a lot of questions. I started brewing almost two years ago. I brewed about 7 total batches with 3 of them going bad (never found out why). I stopped brewing about 8 months ago because of how busy life got but just got back to it yesterday. I enjoy doing this so much I had to just finally get my stuff cleaned up and brew even though I lacked confidence in what I was doing for two reasons 1. It had been so long and 2. My brew partner is now gone off to school so I didn't have someone to walk through the process with other than my books that I learned from.

My question is in regards to fermenting. finished my batch yesterday around 6pm and put the beer away to ferment. From what I remember fermenting typically started fairly quickly where I would be able to see the yeast working. It's been nearly 18 hours and I haven't seen any activity in the carboy. Any thoughts on what could be going on or what I should do? I haven't tried doing anything out of fear of messing things up. I will continue to do research. Thanks!!!!

 

[weirdboy]

Don't worry about it.

There are any number of factors which could result in a lack of visible activity at this stage, and only a very few which have any impact on how your beer will turn out.

 

[twistr25]

Likely you just need to wait it out, it can take up to 72 hours for it to get going. But you can also give us some more info like beer type, extract or AG, ferment temps, pitching temps, yeast type, etc.

***This is a repost from the end of another thread, OP, I would delete one of the two.

 

[naivenavila]

I did all grain. It's a rye pale ale fermenting at 75 I pitched at 70 and yeast type was WLP001California Ale Yeast.

 

[twistr25]

Did you do a starter for the W001? If you can, you'll be better off if you can get your ferment temp into the upper 60s at worst, if not, won't be the end of the world, just not ideal.

 

[naivenavila]

I did not do starter. Never have in the past. Didn't know I was suppose to I just learned you pitch it in as is since its already liquid form. When I get home today from work I'll try to get the temp down. Should I consider aerating more or doing another pitch if there's no activity by tonight?

 

[twistr25]

No, I would give it at least another day to see if anything happens. Actually, for liquid yeasts, it's advisable to always make a starter. Dry yeast you can more readily sprinkle on, but it's better to rehydrate. You may have underpitched a little, so just need to give it time to reproduce and get going.

 

[naivenavila]

Sounds good!!! Thanks a lot for your help. Nice to know that there are people out there willing to help newbies like me.

 

[Flaviking]

Just to add to this.. I did a NB caribou Slobber Extract kit...

Was kind of drunk when I made it.. so I am sure i messed up something.. but it took almost 5 days for fermentation to start... Going to be interesting to see what comes out of it.

As I've read on here multiple times.. Patience is the key.

 

[naivenavila]

So I got home from work and the yeast was working. guess I was just worried out of impatience. thanks guys for your input.