Help with my Barleywine

When I brew I wait at least 48 hours before I worry about seeing activity

 

What kind of yeast did you initially use? My first guess would be to try new/different yeast.

 

how much yeast did you add?

 

FTFY and moved it to the correct forum.

 

What the hell is an energizer?

OP, You should have pitched enough yeast. Did you re-hydrate it before adding it to the wort?

What temp was the wort?

Did you oxygenate the wort for atleast 45-60 seconds with pure O2 before pitching, and use some yeast nutrient in the boil?

All of those are important things when brewing a big OG beer.

 

While I won't argue that these things are not beneficial, rehydration, skipping the O2 and yeast nutrient would not result in no yeast activity. Indeed, I've won numerous ribbons for big beers (12%+ ABV) and I virtually never perform those three steps.

That said, 36 hours would not cause me to lose any hair. I would give it another day or so before looking for fixes to something that we don't know is broken yet.

 

I recomend puting some towels around your fermenter. Things are about to get violent!

 

Make a starter next time. I just Brewed a English Barleywine O.G 1.132. Pitched a 2L starter and it was fermenting in 3 hours. Starters not only give you enough yeast cells (wich you can also achieve by pitching more yeast) but they also cut down on the lag time wich in turn cuts down time for things like DMS and other off flavors to develop. Even if its not a big beer say 1.075 o.g. or higher I still do a small starter so I can get active fermentation quickly

 

What temp did you pitch at?

 

Double check your seals. If there is a small leak somewhere then your bubbler won't bubble because the gas is getting out elsewhere.

 

A lot of unknowns, I would assume it is a 5G batch, did you use a yeast nutrient? Did you use O2?, did you rehydrate and/or make a starter? and at what temp did you pitch?.
That being said I made a 1.092 Barleywine 18G, forgot to use O2 and pitched 12 packs of rehydrated US-05 and it was kicking in about 6 hours. Finished at 1.012.

 

Are you using a bucket? They tend to not seal so they show no airlock activity.

 

Making a starter with dry yeast is not recommended. Without doing the math, two packets seems like a pretty decent pitch.

 

Starter no, rehydrate yes, 1.105 is big and would benefit from rehydration.
I did make a starter from US-05 once tho and it was rather explosive, wont do that again.

 

Agreed. The OP did mention he rehydrated, so I didn't add that.