Lack of fermentation or lack or patience

Brewed an all-grain Dogfish Head 60 minute clone on Friday, hit most of my numbers, missed OG by .04.

My issue is the first yeast I used, Wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale. I didn't notice the date of the package was December 2014 until I was too far along. I aerated and pitched it anyway and waited 24 hours and nothing. So I re-pitched with White labs English ale yeast, 24 hours later nothing.

Should I have re-aerated the wort? Help!

 

How do you determine nothing? No airlock activity, no krausen, no change in gravity? No change in gravity is the only sure way to determine that nothing has happened. I often have no discernible activity for up to 36 hours from pitching and had your original yeast started to provide the slight pressure that is needed to make an airlock bubble, you would have released that when you opened the fermenter to add the second yeast. I'd give this beer another 24 to 36 hours before I got too concerned.

 

No bubbles in the airlock, no krausen, and I was concerned the Wyeast was too old.

I appreciate your reassurance. I have another question, I forgot to add Irish moss at the end of the boil, is anything I can do?

 

i saw a brulosopher experiment that compared starter vs. no starter of one vial. it took 31 hrs before he saw (visibly saw a krausen starting to form) any activity in the single vial batch. did you make a good strong starter for each one? if not, that's likely to be the reason there was no activity. and as stated above, if you're not going off of gravity readings to determine activity, you're likely worrying for nothing.

also wyeast's website even states it's a slow starter and fermenter. but had you done a starter with a yeast that old, it still would've likely made quite a bit of viable cells. maybe still not enough to be proper pitching rates, but was it in a smack pack? did the pack swell before you pitched it?

 

There may have been some viable yeast cells in your original pitch. Your beer is a huge starter for the original pitch, and the second yeast pitched. Give the beer more time.

 

The smack pack didn't swell, as it did the last time I used it, that was my first indication there was a problem.

 

i used irish moss in my first two brews, but then it somehow got left out of my bag at the brewstore for my third brew (sucked because i paid for it and how do you prove to the brewstore that you don't actually have it at home). considering that i didn't cold crash or use gelatin on those brews, it came out just as clear as the two with irish moss. i haven't used irish moss since.
the theory goes "clear beer into the fermenter results in a clear final product." but i'm under the impression that it's not necessarily true. and some people are starting to prove that at least with paler ales the trub going into the fermenter might actually help make a cleaner, crisper beer.

as far as the yeast goes, this is why i think many people are big proponents of starters. although most of the time one vial or smackpack will be just fine for an average gravity-5 gallon batch, even according to the advice of the manufacturer, i think fermentation starts much quicker with a starter, and therefore helps people like you and me who worry and stress about our beer! that's why i always do starters unless using dry yeast, and i also try to overpitch by a little bit each time as well. just to be sure.

 

Bubbles in the airlock at 1:55pm. Success or butter flavor, we shall see.