No Airlock Activity . . . Until I shook it up!!

[cbrider13]

I brewed a batch of Saison and pitched a 1.6 L starter of Wyeast French Saison (3711). I heard this yeast would take off, but I got nothing (visible) for the first 24 hours, so I moved the wort up from the cool basement and into room temp (72/73) for another 24 hours. Still nothing. When I got home from work today I shook the fermenter up a bit and it let of the expected amount of air/gas from shaking, but has since been bubbling away at a moderate pace for three or four hours.

Can anyone explain this? Is the beer o.k.?

Another caveat. This was my first time using a starter. It went well (so I thought) and had some nice krausen and activity for about 24-30 hours before I pitched it. However, I think the wort was about 65 degrees when I pitched the starter, which was at room temp (72/73). Could the cold temp of the wort "shocked" the yeast for a bit?

Thanks in advance for your replies

 

[DPS412]

Idk but I experienced the same issue only an hour ago we are expecting temperatures of. -30 tomorrow so I put my fermenter in a tupaware bin and wrapped blankets around it and now my airlock is going about a bubble a second

 

[hotspurdotus]

Your beer is fine.

The airlock isn't an accurate measurement of fermentation activity. It was fermenting before you shook it, you just knocked a lot of CO2 out of suspension, which caused the airlock activity.

Enjoy your beer.

 

[BuckSwope]

Sounds like it just had a longer than expected lag time. That's surprising from a starter because mine usually take no more than 12 hours to get cracking on my batches. Did you adequately aerate before pitching? Did you use a yeast starter calculator to determine if you had enough viable yeast cells for optimal fermentation? The temp seems perfectly normal for pitching so don't see an issue there. Either way, you're good. Just relax and let nature run its course.