Hi all, question. My buddy and I made a wheat beer Wednesday night and used Wyeast American Wheat and after 2 and a half days I see no bubbling or active fermentation. Now I know that doesn't mean fermentation is not taking place, however in the past I have always seen bubbling to ease my mind. Also I know it can take up to 3 days or even longer sometimes before fermentation starts. The package says use the yeast within 6 months and the yeast was just about 6 months old. If I don't see anything in the next day or 2 is there anything I can do. I know there are other factors that effect fermentation as well. Can I buy another Wyeast package and put it in the beer again? Will it be too late. Beer is in carboy, just don't know what to do. Getting a little worried. Just wondering what my options are, any help would be greatly appreciated. I can't think of a better place to get advice. Thank you
If you see no krausen on top of the beer at this point then you can be pretty sure the yeast is bad. Yes, you can re-pitch new yeast. I've done this as much as 5 days after brew day with success (but earlier is better).
If the beer is in a carboy, can you see an active krausen or a line where krausen has already taken place? If there is no evidence of krausen, then you yeast is probably not viable enough to do their job, and you may need to add more yeast. Even if the pack was six months old, there should still be some viable yeast in there. If there is a krausen line, then do nothing. Wait and be patient. You can check the gravity using a sanitized wine thief if you're not sure, but if there's a mark of crud along the carboy about an inch above the liquid line, then fermentation has obviously begun, and taking a gravitometer reading at three days is pointless.
Six months is pretty old. Depending on how is was stored all that time, you could have a small fraction of the original viable yeast, or a very small fraction. Look inside the fermenter and see if there is a krausen, or a ring to indicate that there was a krausen. Take a hydrometer reading and see if it's lower than your OG reading. (You did take one, right?) Also, make sure the wort/beer is at a temperature that your yeast strain should be active at. The published temp ranges that the manufacturers publish are generally okay. Given the age of your yeast, if after (say) 3 days there's no krausen, no evidence of previous krausen, and the temp was fine, I'd probably repitch.
I see no krausen at the top yet, I do see stuff at the bottom of the carboy. Tonight it will be 72 hours, should I just add another packet of yeast? Thanks
If it is a little chilly where your carboy is sitting then you can move it to a slightly warmer area to help wake up those little puppies. Repitching sounds like it is your next option.
Yes, that would be my recommendation. The calculator says yeast that is six months old will only have 22% viability, which is way underpitching. And if the yeast packet has suffered any heat stress in that six months it will be even lower. Even it if eventually starts, the results will be far less than ideal. Check out the yeast calculators at mrmalty and/or yeastcalc . . . they are pretty easy to use and provide good guidance.
In the future, I would recommend always doing a yeast starter, it will save you a lot of potential stress. It's much nicer to find out that the yeast you bought is not viable when you pitch it into a starter, in that you'll have time to replace it with healthy yeast before your brew day.
Yesterday I posted I hadn't seen any active fermentation going on for about over 48 hours and then just last night it started. I was going to put in another packet of yeast but I am seeing bubbling about every 15 minutes. Do you think I am good to go. I know it isn't an exact science but I was worried for a moment. Thanks for all the help.
After looking at your other post I think pitching more yeast would have been your best bet. As yeast age, they become less viable meaning you probably greatly under pitched your beer which can lead to sluggish/slow/possibly incomplete fermentation. In the future I would recommend consulting a yeast pitch rate calculator like mrmalty.com Yeast starters are a very simple way to greatly improve the quality of your beers and there's numerous how to videos on the inter tube.
Rather than scratching your head for answers, I recommend you go to yeastcalc.com and plug in your batch size and OG numbers. This will tell you how many yeast cells you need. From your earlier post, your six month old yeast was down to 22% viability. Plug in your new yeast packet date and see how many cells are estimated. It is quite possible another packet is still not enough. Right now you have underpitched your yeast. There should be a high krausen level (a couple of inches up to overflowing) if the level was correct. Consequences are low attenuation (low alcohol level), poor taste, and the window is open longer for bacteria to upset everything. Learn to use a yeast calculator, it will be your friend.
It sounds like your fermentation is probably under way (although airlock bubbles are generally not a good quantitative measure of activity). This doesn't change the fact that you underpitched, and there may be consequences. But you'll make beer. As others said...plan an appropriate yeast starter next time, using one of the free online calculators. I'm somewhat baffled by the fact that at least 3 people advised you to measure the gravity, and you apparently didn't.
You'll make beer. It taking that long to take off is troubling, and could cause an issue down the road. Chances are the yeast is stressed and you'll end up with a beer with some off flavors.
