I'm in a pickle.....My yeast is dead.

[RandyAB]

I brewed a 15gal batch with a OG of 1.058 and put 11gal into my s/s conical and 4 gal into a glass carboy set up with a blowoff tube. The yeast I used was some Burton Ale yeast that had a best before date of Nov 28/11. I had 2 vials of the stuff and 2 days before I made two 1 quart starters which I thought would be good. Before I pitched I tasted the clear fluid that I decanted off of the starters and there was NO alcohol taste (very "yeasty"). Anyway, after 24 hrs at 68f there was zero activity in both the carboy and the fermentor. The OG hadn't budged one bit and the wort was clear....No bubbles what so ever. Anyway, I panic a bit because the only other yeast I have is a single packet of Nottingham dry and I live 3hrs away from the nearest LHBS. Anyway, fully realizing that I am underpitching, I rehydrate that today and put it in the 11gal sitting in the conical. My plan in a couple of days is to harvest some from the conical and pitch it in the carboy to get it going. So.........two questions.

#1. Since I underpitched the 11gal would it be beneficial to repitch that back into the same fermentor?

#2. Is the 4gal that I put into the carboy likely to turn out well if I pitch so long (4-5days) after intial wort creation?

Thanks for the input.

 

[Brulosopher]

I bet your carboy picks up by then

 

[Stauffbier]

You likely could have made a starter with the dry yeast.. I've never done it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

 

[kh54s10]

The best way of knowing if your starter worked besides letting it settle and looking at how big a layer is on the bottom is to check the gravity. A starter is low gravity so I am not sure I would be able to taste any alcohol. It is also not brewed the same as a beer so I would not be able to tell much by taste.

With that old a batch of yeast it would have been a good idea to make a small starter early and see if there was any progress then step it up to the proper pitching amount for brew day.

 

[RandyAB]

I wrote to White Labs prior to making the starter and their suggestion was to pitch it 12-24 hrs after making it. Rhat way the yeast would be in their growth phase, not their fermentation phase.

I did consider making a starter from the dry but I didn't want to wait. I figured it would be better to make a BIG starter from the 11 gal batch.

 

[RandyAB]

You were correct Brightspot! Today the carboy has a beautiful krausen.....better late than never.

Sooooo, the question now is, how will the mixture Nottingham and the Burton Ale yeasties get along together in the conical?

 

[cswest]

My LHBS is over an hour drive, once I had some yeast not take off and the choice was to dump it or add bread yeast. I went ahead an put in the bread yeast and the thing took off. It even hand the flavor of the original beer yeast. I'm not saying it was the best beer ever but it was a lot better than dumping it.

 

[Brulosopher]

You were correct Brightspot! Today the carboy has a beautiful krausen.....better late than never.

Sooooo, the question now is, how will the mixture Nottingham and the Burton Ale yeasties get along together in the conical?

Cheers! Let us know how the Notty/Burton mix turns out.