Dud Wyeast Liquid Yeast Packet? - Help Desperately Needed

Give it more time, I wouldnt worry about there being no APPARENT activity at the 4 hour mark.

 

I agree. Be patient and you will see activity within 24 hours.

 

As others said, it's too soon to worry. But I would recommend reading up on yeast starters. The Mr. Malty site would be a good starting place. If I read your post correctly, you started a starter, then pitched that into your beer wort a few hours later, which doesn't give the starter enough time to do what it's supposed to, i.e. propagate more cells.

Flocculation is when yeast clump together and sink to the bottom. It's what happens roughly after the food runs out.

The yeast will love 75F. But for most styles/yeast strains, that's really too warm, because 75F means ~80F fermentation temperature, which will increase esters and possibly fusel alcohols. You should look into temperature control, even cheap/rudimentary temp control. There are lots of threads about it. Look up Swamp Cooler, for example.

 

It sounds like you don't quite understand the full reason for a starter. You need to give it a day atleast, and maybe another to crash it down and decant the spend oxidized "beer" from the flask before pitching it.

You wouldn't notice any activity because you didn't give it enough time to even start fermenting.

What temp was the starter when you pitched the yeast into it? It wasn't still super hot from boiling was it? Cooled down to fermentation temps?

However, 1 smack pack, for a 1 gallon batch is plenty of yeast, and you could have just smacked the pack, allowed it to swell and "proof" if you will, and then pitched directly.

As for adding it to your beer, I'd give it a bit of time. Freak out tomorrow if you don't see any signs.

Also- 75* to ferment.. is going to be hot for that Whitbread yeast.

Chances are, with enough yeast, if you didn't kill them in the starter depending on how you made it, you've probably already seen activity especially with those elevated temps.

 

Ebola Virus! Panic! Run around in circles!! Stock up on canned food, water, and ammo, quick!!! If there's a line at walmart, use your pepper spray!!!!

Oh wait, wrong thread.

Yeast starter = good.

75F fermentation temperature = fermenting wort > 75F That's bad.

Sounds like you need a freezer/controller setup. For this brew I'd at least get a swamp cooler going.

 

Smack Packs are not starters. All they do is feed a very small amount of sugars to the yeast so that you can determine if they are alive. Smack Packs don't increase cell counts (at least not significantly). Again, just to be clear...the purpose of a yeast starter is to increase the viable cell count, not to get the yeast "started."

Still way too early to worry or be sad.
BTW, is there a crusty looking ring around your fermenter, just above the surface of the wort?

 

You pitched an entire smack pack into 1 gallon of wort. It would not surprise me that the fermentation is complete at this stage.

“The yeast visibly remains on the bottom of the carboy…” is a possible indication that fermentation is done.

I recognize that since you only have a gallon of ‘liquid’ but you could conduct a hydrometer reading to measure what gravity you have right now.

Cheers!

 

A couple comments for your consideration:

A yeast starter is generally not necessary for a one gallon batch. Unless you're talking about a very old package of yeast or a very high gravity wort, one package of yeast is going to be more than enough to ferment one gallon.

When you make a yeast starter, it's usually difficult to observe fermentation. The most active period might last only an hour or two, so unless you're standing there watching it's easy to miss it. Best thing to do, IMO, is to make your starter and then allow 24-36 hours for it to ferment out. If you continue with one gallon batches, you will not (usually) need to make a starter. If you move on to larger batches, I would suggest making the starter a couple days in advance.

It usually takes longer than four hours for fermentation to become apparent. This is highly dependent on temperature and other factors.

As others have said, you probably want to do what you can to lower your fermentation temp down to ~68F for most ales.

 

It does that. But JackHorzempa's point was that some time after that, the yeast may have moved into suspension, did their thing, and flocculated. While you weren't looking. Possibly overnight. And that's certainly possible, given the small batch size and high temperature. That's why I asked about any crusty residue.

 

Ah I missed the one gallon thingie.

No need to be too sad even if the worst case scenario takes place when you're only talking about one gallon of wort. It's only a gallon! However, a whole smak pak for one gallon is pretty overkill. I'd work towards a more appropriate method of getting the right amount of yeast into your beers. Way too much is bad, as is way too little. Which is worse, who knows, I don't know because I don't let it happen.

 

Generally, you'll need a bigger starter for lagers than for ales.

I'm assuming you're talking about a fridge that also contains food. Do you keep your food somewhere around 50F? If so, you could do a lager fermentation in it. But I wouldn't look at lager fermentation temperature control as being somehow simpler than ale fermentation temperature control.

 

These forums are great for beginners, but I highly recommend How To Brew by Palmer to fill in the "holes".

 

I wouldn't even mess with lagers right now. You need temperature control first off. Proper starters and yeast pitching second. Fundamentals. Lagers are advanced. I was on like 50 batches of ales before I tried my first lager, and mind you I have a second freezer/controller setup dedicated just to lagers.

Going funky with yeasts is advanced. I would suggest it's also inadvisable unless you really know what you are doing and why you are doing it. I mixed yeasts once and the result was a very so-so beer where had I simply used the yeast that had already worked great (four times) for that beer I would have had a very tasty beer.

KISS. Fundamentals. Simplicity.

And if you haven't read how to brew, that's first up.

 

@MLucky already mentioned what I think are the most important things to bear in mind: (1) you almost certainly didn't need a starter, and (2) fermentation can be hard to observe in a starter (and for that matter, in a 1-gallon batch!) because it can happen very quickly and without much fuss.

In the future, for 1-gallon batches, I wouldn't do a starter, and I also wouldn't worry if there is a 12- or 24-hour lag before fermentation is noticeable. Just use a packet of yeast that is likely to be healthy (not too old, not exposed to long periods of warm temperature). A starter is just another thing that can go wrong. (Also, do I understand correctly that you added the whole 500mL starter to your gallon of wort? That is a very high ratio of starter to wort, and most people would worry about off-flavors that the starter liquid might contribute. Yet another reason not to do a starter for small batches.)

One more thing: your options aren't confined to 1-gallon batches or 5-gallon batches. I usually brew 2.5 to 3.5 gallons at a time, and I'm happy with it. It sounds as though your system could handle a 2.5 gallon batch, and I think you might be happy trying it out. At 2.5 gallons, even a somewhat high-gravity beer does not need a starter, by the way. And if you are just brewing simple ales (which can be bottled after 2-3 weeks in primary), then you can use a 5-gallon Better Bottle (which is what I would recommend) without difficulty. Only for long-term aging would that much head space create a problem.