Question about activating dry yeast

You're just rehydrating, not reactivating. There are no sugars in the water you use to rehydrate, so you'll get no activity beyond perhaps a slight bit of foaming. The yeast simply turns into a slurry.

As for sanitation, your best bet is to boil the water, cover, and let it cool to ~90 or so. It doesn't sound like you did that. Likely, however, unless you just poured water into a pan you used to collect raw sewage or something, you'll be okay. While it's a good idea to always err on the side of caution, we home brewers can also be a bit too anal about sanitation. Remember, they made beer long before they knew what microbes were. No "freaking out" necessary.

 

Haha had to reply as my hb partner regularly reminds me of the fact that cavemen made beer when I get sanitation psychotic.

OP I am sure you will be fine. IMHO most dry yeast needs no rehydration, the more important thing is oxygenating the wort.

 

Not to start yet another endless discussion on this topic, but Danstar says that aeration is not necessary with their dry yeasts. Experience seems to confirm that. It probably doesn't hurt, it's just not necessary.

 

From Palmer '"Dry yeast should be re-hydrated in water before pitching. Often the concentration of sugars in wort is high enough that the yeast can not draw enough water across the cell membranes to restart their metabolism." For that and another couple of reasons you should re-hydrate.

As far as the need to aerate goes have at look at this thread:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/theres-some-bad-info-going-around-295623/index2.html

One thing that isn't really mentioned in the above thread is that oxygen will promote cell reproduction. So with the high cell count in a/some dry yeast packet you could easily end up over-pitching.

 

This is a debate without a resolution. Rehydrate or not. Aerate or not. You can make award winning beers using any combination of the above. With no clear benefit evident from the extra steps, I tend to sprinkle dry yeast directly into the wort and I tend not to aerate beyond the incidental sloshing that occurs when filling the fermenter. That's how I do it. It works for me. And I'm exquisitely happy with my beers!

 

Ive had no activity for 3 days before fermentation started... RDWHAHB

 

+1
fermentation can take up too 72 hours before any visible signs
RAHAHB

 

Remember other factors while you watch this.

On the samples w/O2 (reproduction) I would of liked to see what type of cells are produced. Any mutants?

Do you need more cells? If you are looking for reproduction then I wouldn't be concerned about the lag time because it's needed. But over pitching can be an problem. Bamforth has addressed this and states the some yeast needs to be (what we or Mr Malty might consider) over or under pitched. I think that would be a personal choice through experimenting with each strain. While I've never seen any numbers of what the boundaries would be, I think that you have no control with this method. For increasing cell count I recommend making a starter so you can at least try and control the cell count.

Fermentation is probably the most important aspect of making beer. I think that this is proven out when you ask homebrewers on what has made the biggest improvements in their beer, temp control and starters normally win out as the top two choices. Why anyone wants to make it harder for their yeast or make it do unwanted things is something that I don't exactly understand.

 

Sometimes yeast just takes a while to get going. mikehartigan pretty much hits it on the head. It isn't rocket science. Sprinkle it on top or rehydrate it. I've done both with no noticeable differences.

Could it be that the higher OG is preventing the yeast from taking off a little later than expected? I remember reading something somewhere that higher concentrations of sugar can effect yeast growth initially?

 

That's a good sign.

Just curios, are you in a bucket? One of the first signs of fermentation is a small white foam on top. Then (for ale yeast) the brown'ish yeast cells on top. In a glass carboy you can see this. I'm not sure when you get airlock activity because I normally just start with tin foil. So if your just looking at the airlock things could of started hours ago.

But I don't think that being your first all-gain would of mattered.

 

That's right, you did say one gal. My apology's.

I just use tin foil until fermentation slows. But this is for repeat batches and I know my system. In your case it depends on how much head space that you have.