Big mistake! Should I Start over?

[Ale402]

Ok so my dad and i found a recipe close to a peroni clone and decided to give it a shot. Its a lager so yes lager yeast is needed and of course the right temp for fermentation. Went to the store asked the guy for european style lager yeast and he gave me a liquid vile of european ale yeast. confused to why he gave me this i asked and he said "oh you will be fine" well stupidly enough i did my own reasearch after the fact we pitched the yeast at 45 degrees and asked my friend who worked at the store and he straight up said yea that guy doesnt know much about home brewing he shouldn't be working there.

So my problem is that i pitched ale yeast at 45 degrees and let it rise up to 55 degrees over night until i realized that what i have done is completely wrong because i was treating it like lager yeast. my friend said bring the temp up to 65 and i should be fine. will i be fine? or should i just start over? is is worth waiting to see if the beer will turn out ok? its been over 24 hours and no bubbles in the airlock yet. what do i do?

 

[MrFancyPlants]

You'll be fine, bring the temp up a bit and let it ride.

 

[didinho]

was a Wyeast yeast, 125ml?
did you make a starter? how much?
24 can be a normal lag time for lager (usually mine start bubblin in 12 hours)
and why a Peroni clone?!?

 

[Todd820]

You'll be fine, bring the temp up a bit and let it ride.

I second this. Your yeast is going to take a little longer due to the low temp you started it at, but if you let it rise to the yeast's preferred range it should "wake up" and start eating. If you followed sound sanitation practices the delay should not hurt you.

If you don't see krausen or airlock activity in a few more days, you may consider pitching more yeast. I certainly would do that before ditching the entire batch.

Of course, you won't end up with the clone you wanted, but you will still have beer and that is always a good thing

 

[m00ps]

LOL classic LHBS misinformation. As long as you used proper sanitation techniques, it will be OK if the yeast needs to take time to warm up and get things started.

That being said, its not going to be anything close to a clone if its supposed to be a lager fermented at lager temps, and you used an estery european ale yeast at ale temps

 

[kh54s10]

If you want the beer to be a lager you will have to start over. What you have now is a nice ale. Let the temperature rise to the mid sixties and continue. Go back to that LHBS and tell them their error. At least you should get the proper yeast at no charge. If they really want to correct things they should replace the malts as well at no charge.

 

[Dirt_McGirt]

If you treat it right for what it actually is (not a lager), it'll be a fine beer, even if it's not what you wanted originally.

LOL classic LHBS misinformation.

Am I the only person whose LHBS appears to be staffed at least primarily by eminently experienced/knowledgeable homebrewers? I can't recall asking a question of any of them that they didn't have a good answer for, outside of matters of opinion or debate. So many folks here seem to be cursed with LHBS employees straight out of the script to Idiocracy.

/thread derail

Also, +1 for the thread author to let his LHBS know about the poor guidance, both to get reimbursed and so that hopefully their employee can either get their act together or be let go.

 

[Ale402]

Thanks guys and yea I know I'll have an ale and if I don't see any activity in a couple days I'll repitch with the same type of yeast. Right now my chamber says 65.5 so hopefully I'll start seeing changes soon. Whenever I open up my chamber it smells as if it is fermenting but still no bubbles. Also I know bubbles aren't a good indicator for fermentation. I'll keep you guys posted!

 

[Ale402]

Ok so here's an update to how it's going. I opened my chamber today and I got a strong familiar smell that it's fermenting yay! And the airlock is bubbling like it should. How long do you guys think I should leave the beer in my primary since it got a slow start? I was thinking three weeks then transfer it to my secondary to separate it from the trub. is that sufficient?

 

[kombat]

Let it ride for 2 full weeks from brew day, then bottle it. Skip secondary, it's pointless and only risks oxidizing or infecting your beer.

 

[Mismost]

LOL classic LHBS misinformation. As long as you used proper sanitation techniques, it will be OK if the yeast needs to take time to warm up and get things started.

That being said, its not going to be anything close to a clone if its supposed to be a lager fermented at lager temps, and you used an estery european ale yeast at ale temps

I was out of town and stopped into a brew shop....I asked a question and the guy said "I'm sorry, I just started working here and I don't know the answer to that question." How hard is that? And it's honest with no bad info changing hands. I told him, hey man, that's OK....I don't know the answer either!

What drives me up a wall is when someone tries to BS me. I wind up with bad info, bad results, and will think badly about person or shop for a long time. While I am often ignorant, I don't have to tell lies and make it worse.

BTW....I learned that 40 years ago in the Army. The standard response to a question you did not know the answer to was " I do not know, Sir. I will find out and report back to you"! One of the few things I "kept" from the Army and it still works good today.

 

[kombat]

What drives me up a wall is when someone tries to BS me. I wind up with bad info, bad results, and will think badly about person or shop for a long time.

Yep. There's a saying in computer programming that bad/incorrect comments in code are worse than no comments at all.

I tend to believe that many of these LHBS employees are just parroting old/outdated advice, rather than making up nonsense on the spot. For whatever reason, they're simply unaware of the evolving knowledge of brewing. Is it laziness? Ignorance? Disinterest?