thecebruery
Active Member
So I pitched some slightly old reharvested T-58 in to a Belgian Dubbel two days ago. The T-58 had been primarily harvested from an 8.0% tripel that had a slow finish to its fermentation, harvested in early December. I also had another small amount of yeast from the same Dubbel two and a half months earlier that I threw in for good measure. I used Mr. Malty for all vitality assumptions, but that couldn't take in to account what was likely diminished vitality from the crappy fermentation of the tripel. All the yeast was kept in sanitized jars @ 3C.
So now I'm 36-hours post pitch, the beer has warmed up from ~15C post cool down to ~21C, but there's still no noticeable fermentation activity (only minor and occasional bubbling that I think is a result of the temperature increase, itself due to higher ambient temperatures and not fermentation). I'm thinking of monitoring for another 24-36 hours just in case it's a slow starter after being in deep freeze for so long, but just in case it's not ...
I live in a pretty isolated area and can't just "run down to my local HBS" to grab yeast. It's also the holidays (obviously) and so nothing opens back up for another few days. I might be able to get some T-58 shipped in by late next week ... a full 10 days after brewing. No way the beer will last without getting infected that long.
My proposed plan of action is to:
a) monitor for another day or two to see if anything has started off, and if there's still no activity after that time,
b) to cold crash the beer down to 1C to drop all the old/dead yeast out of solution and keep any baddies from growing in it until the new T-58 arrives.
I've never done this before (kept a beer on ice until emergency yeast arrives) - does anyone have any experience with this? Can anyone think of any alternatives I'm not thinking of? Any advice on how to pull this off successfully? Thanks in advance, and happy new years to all!
So now I'm 36-hours post pitch, the beer has warmed up from ~15C post cool down to ~21C, but there's still no noticeable fermentation activity (only minor and occasional bubbling that I think is a result of the temperature increase, itself due to higher ambient temperatures and not fermentation). I'm thinking of monitoring for another 24-36 hours just in case it's a slow starter after being in deep freeze for so long, but just in case it's not ...
I live in a pretty isolated area and can't just "run down to my local HBS" to grab yeast. It's also the holidays (obviously) and so nothing opens back up for another few days. I might be able to get some T-58 shipped in by late next week ... a full 10 days after brewing. No way the beer will last without getting infected that long.
My proposed plan of action is to:
a) monitor for another day or two to see if anything has started off, and if there's still no activity after that time,
b) to cold crash the beer down to 1C to drop all the old/dead yeast out of solution and keep any baddies from growing in it until the new T-58 arrives.
I've never done this before (kept a beer on ice until emergency yeast arrives) - does anyone have any experience with this? Can anyone think of any alternatives I'm not thinking of? Any advice on how to pull this off successfully? Thanks in advance, and happy new years to all!
