Trouble with Windsor yeast

[dancness]

Ok, let me give a short background then I will ask my question.

On Sunday, 48 hours ago, I pitched a packet of Windsor dry yeast into a pale ale I made. OG 1.055. I then put my fermentor into my swamp cooler where the water is kept at about 65F.

Since then I have gotten no yeast activity at all. No krausen, no bubbles, nothing. It appears as though all the yeast simply fell to the bottom and died.

Today when I got home from work I took the lid off the fermentor. It still looks and smells like wort, with a bit of a funky smell although I can't pinpoint what that is exactly.

I used a sanitized spoon to rouse the yeast, by swirling gently. When I did that a more milky appearance seemed to rise up from the bottom (kind of like when you add cream to coffee). I have decided to keep the fermentor out of the swamp cooler and at 74F instead of 65F to see if that will help the yeast start their job.

My question is this: Am I screwed with this yeast? Should I buy another less finicky yeast and pitch that instead? Or should I ride this out and trust that the Winsdor will stop being a little ***** and do its job?

Help me out, this is the first time I've used Windsor yeast. All my other fermentations have started within 24 hours. But for some reason with this one, it's been 48 hours and nothing has happened.

Thank you,
DC

 

[Yooper]

What is the current SG?

Windsor is pretty flocculant, but it shouldn't have dropped out completely.

 

[dancness]

dangit I dropped and broke my hydrometer.

Well I guess when I go to the LHBS I will pick up a pack of Notty as well while I'm there in case I need it.

I'll get back to you with the SG.

 

[eastoak]

did you dry pitch or did you rehydrate the yeast?

 

[Malticulous]

Shake the fermenter. I bet you get some CO2 out the air lock.

 

[gtwarren1966]

Yeah did you pitch dry or rehydrate? Rehydrate will give you much better results. Also I know your swamp cooler is at 65 but what temp was the wort when you pitched?

 

[dancness]

I didn't rehydrate, I just pitched the yeast dry. The wort was about 75F when I pitched and then I put it directly in the swamp cooler at 65F.

Last night I took the fermentor out of the swamp cooler to ambient temp (75F) and I opened it up and swirled it around with a sanitized spoon.

Today it looks like fermentation has started. I am seeing bubbles coming out of the airlock, so hopefully that fixed the problem.

In the future I will remember to rehydrate dry yeast, especially Windsor. I have never had problems pitching dry yeast when I was using Nottingham. It seems like Windsor is a bit more finicky though.