First AG Lager 7 days no G change.

RESOLUTION: I racked the AG version of the beer right on to the yeast cake of another octoberfest (extract) that I kegged today (same yeast) and its already fermenting like crazy. Thanks for the help!

First AG lager brewed one week ago and the gravity has not changed, looking for advice.

OG 1.060
Pitched about a 2.5 L starter with 2 vials of wyeast octoberfest at 53F, although at the time of pitch the starter was probably 45F. I don't have a ton of experience with starters yet but it looked pretty active (24 hrs after pitched into starter).
Temperature has been a rock solid 53F (using a brewjacket)

Today I took a reading and gave it a good stir.

Here's the rub- I brewed an extract version of this same beer that is ready to bottle tomorrow. It had a perfect fermentation in the same conditions /yeast/etc for 2 weeks, then lagered for six more weeks. The yeast cake for that beer is there for the picking.

Is using that yeast a bad idea? Should I just bite the bullet and get two more vials and make a new starter at the LHBS?

Really bummed my first AG isn't going well, everything was perfect on brew day!

 

What were your recipe and mashing process?

I suspect a hot temp and therefore an unfermentable wort

 

8 Pounds Vienna Malt
1 pound munich malt
8 oz crystal 80L
8 oz caramunich malt
1 oz Tettnang (40 minutes)
1 oz Hallertau (30 minutes)

120F protein rest for 30
153F for 45.
Sparge 170.

With a good OG it could still be unfermentable?

 

Hmm that looks ok. I've never made a recipe with 100% Vienna malt as the base though, it might have something to do with that.

A high og just means your wort is more dense than water. It could be more dense because of sugars, which are fermentable, or because of unbroken starches which are not.

I don't know what the amalayse content in Vienna malt is though. That's the enzyme that breaks down the starches. I think it should be fine though.

Have you checked the calibration of your thermometer?

(Put it in an ice bath and stir it for 5 minutes and it should read 32F)

EDIT: just looked it up. Vienna malt is fine as a base, it has plenty of enzymes.

It's possible you might have gotten a mislabeled strain of yeast. You could try warming your fermentor to 65 and see if it starts to show activity.

 

If there isn't anything extremely odd going on (like a gravity reading that's totally off and you have fermentation) I'd say somethings up with the yeast. Your recipe looks fine. It should be fermenting. Have you opened the fermenter or taken a sample? If it's not at all fermenting.....and it was me, I'd transfer it to that yeast cake..... Quickly. Before it gets funky on ya.

 

I took a sample yesterday and while the gravity hadn't changed (maybe like... .003) it still tasted great. Definitely not fermented beer though!

I'm transferring the beer on to the other yeast cake today, fingers crossed I don't have unfermentable wort somehow.

 

It's damned near impossible to make unfermentable wort from grains.
Gotta be a yeast problem, hope the transfer works out for you

 

Thanks for the reassurance! I racked the AG lager right on to the yeast cake of the extract lager (same yeast) at 60F and within 20 minutes it was going nuts! Must have been bad yeast or I screwed up my starter.

 

Hydrometer or refractometer? Thermometer calibrated?

 

Glad you got it going. Did you make a split starter of the original yeast for both batches at the same time? Possibly put the starter yeast in the same vessel instead of splitting it into two starters? I.e. Starter #1 got all the yeast. Starter #2 just wort that never got yeast pitched.

Just looking for possibilities as to why your one batch took off and the other didn't. Of course if you made separate starters on different days disregard this post in its entirety.

 

The difference was about 2 months of sitting in my fridge- I had four vials that had a use by date was 2/1/2016, so I may have had low viability by the time I made the AG version 2 months after the extract version. Other than that I don't know.

 

I'll check on my thermometer being calibrated. I know my hydrometer must be jacked because I had 102% efficiency according to an online calculator, hah.

 

Hydrometers are calibrated to a specific temperature, usually around 60F I believe. If your wort/beer was too hot/cold, the reading will be skewed.

 

Using http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ and http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/ I still get 102% accounting for temperature. The only other thing I can think is that my grain weights are pre-milling, which may have messed up the calculation too.

 

I don't think the premilling weight would be any difference from the milled weight. A pound is a pound. Even if you broke it into 1000 pieces they would all add up and equal the pound. There are really only a few ways to look at it. Either your weight of grain was off when purchased or your liquid measurements were off. I.e. Precision of temperature and accuracy of testing equipment.