Did I kill my yeast?

[hopsandchains]

I started a new batch last night (Canadian Draft from a Mr. Beer kit), and there appears to be no activity at all in my fermenter. In fact, my airlocks have even REVERSED, and the fermenter bottle is sucking water from my airlock into my 'fermenting' beer. This may have been caused by a simple reduction of pressure in the fermenter as the wort cooled...

Thinking I had possibly pitched the yeast when the wort was too hot, I added some more yeast tonight, hoping that it might get it started.

Any thoughts?

 

[frazier]

How warm was the wort when you pitched?

 

[hopsandchains]

I can't remember exactly, but I know that we waited until we could put our hands on the side of the tank and not feel like it was too hot.

This was at about 1:30 AM, so the idea of actually measuring the temp must have escaped me. Plus, my brother started talking in Celsius, which may have messed me up...

Whatever the temp initially, now it is sitting at about 70Deg, and I just added another small amount of yeast.

 

[hairy]

yeast won't die so easily unless it is real hot. Pasteurization type of hot. At warmer temperatures, yeast would just go crazy and produce all sorts of unwanted junk in the beer. It doesn't kill you or kill the yeast. Just plain undesirable.

If there are no signs of fermentation after 2 days, maybe your yeast sample was dead to begin with.

 

[hopsandchains]

I checked the other day, and everything appears to be going well! I'm getting a bunch of foam, and my airlocks are bubblin'!