Hey All,
I put my wort into my carboy and sprinkled the dry yeast into it ( i didn’t hydrate, don’t kill me).
It’s been 12 hours and no activity in the airlock. I have a belt warmer on it so I know the temperature isn’t a huge factor at this point.
If I don’t see any activity in another 12 hours, can I just add in more dry yeast? Or is this a real dumb idea?
Visual fermentation can take up to 72hrs to start. Don’t do anything for another 2 days. Sprinkling dry yeast into wort (some would frown upon, although I’m not one of them) can lead to longer lag time.
I can almost guarantee you’ll see fermentation staring within the next 12-24hrs or so.
RDWHAHB :cheers:
which yeast? Don’t think about alternatives/fail-safe plans until 48-72 hours after pitching and no activity. You are inoculating a sugary solution with billions of cells of cells of something that want to eat sugar. They will get to work.
Finally, if you take one thing from these 5 sentences, please remember that airlock activity does not equal fermentation activity.
As stated above; fermentation can take up to 72 hours to kick in, so don’t touch it until then. Also, ignore the airlock, it doesn’t mean anything. I’ve had brews that never had a single bubble in the airlock, but they fermented completely. Watch the krausen level to know that fermentation is occurring, or better yet take gravity readings.
Sprinkling the dry yeast is absolutely fine, I’ve been doing it for years with no ill effect. Although I guarantee somebody else will post here that it’s detrimental to the yeast. Sprinkling the yeast kills/shocks some of the yeast, but there’s so many yeast cells in a dry pack that it doesn’t matter unless you’re doing a huge batch with only one pack.
+1 to all the above. I brewed a porter on Sunday afternoon, pitched us-o5 dry at about 2 o’clock, and by Monday afternoon(yesterday) had a krausen starting to form. Wort was 60*F. You should be fine.
Ron
