I am brewing a Scottish ale and decided to use Danstar Nottingham yeast. This is the first time I have used this yeast. I have used the Munich and was very happy with it. I made a starter like normal to insure the yeast was health. yeast started working right away. I pitched it in my wort and waited after 24 hours was little action and at 30 hours had started to work like normal. and at 48 had slowed to barely anything. almost nothing I been brewing for many years and was wondering if anyone has had the same problem with the yeast. or even if it is a problem. my temp is 68 so I wouldn’t think that would be a problem.
I’ve heard of recent problems/inconsistency with Notty, but you shouldn’t make a starter for dry yeast. They blow through their glycogen reserves growing in the starter. Did you check gravity?
My first beer ever was the Irish Red that comes with the starter kit here on NB and used Nottingham in that. I had very little airlock activity after about 48 hours but I also fermented in the mid 70’s ambient with no temperature controls so I just assumed it was a result of that.
The yeast also seems to be very flocculant because carbing this beer took almost 2 months to complete bottle conditioning at around 67*.
like mentioned, you don’t need starters for dry yeast.
even if it was liquid yeast, a 20 minute starter isn’t nearly long enough. you need a few days.
try pitching more yeast. if you don’t have the means to get more, then give it time.
the fact that the gravity has dropped, means the yeast did something. have you checked your hydrometers calibration?
if the yeast flocculates you can give it a general swirl to get the yeast back in suspension. be careful to avoid splashing
Maybe the OP is just using the wrong term? Rehydrating dry yeast for 20 minutes in tepid (about 100F) water is called “proofing” and is a good way of both checking for yeast viability and getting them active without the stress incurred by being pitched directly into a high sugar solution. Most dry yeast manufacturers recommend it, though like most things in brewing you can easily get away without it.
I didn’t think about that… That sounds more likely.
To the OP, if this is what you did, what temperature did you proof or rehydrate?
Also - has the gravity dropped more since your last post?
Yes I proofed my yeast. Sorry for the confusion. What I do is boil one cup of water in the flack on stove for five minutes. Then I let it cool to around 80 with the foam stopper in so nothing can get in. I then add my yeast and had waited 20 minutes before adding it to my wort. This morning after talking to other friends of mine. They thought was best to transfer it to a clean carboy. and get it off the old/bad yeast. There was very little in bottom of the carboy. MY friend who’s been brewing about as long as I been alive said it should be fine. So I add wlp028 Edinburgh yeast to it and is going like crazy. not sure if it was bad yeast or my mistake. Thank you all so much for the help and the replies!!! Think I will stick with whitelab yeast and wyeast. not that dry yeast is bad maybe I just got a bad one. or made a mistake. Just goes to show that there is always something new to learn. no matter how long you been doing something!!!
The only thing I can think of is your water that you rehydrated your yeast was possibly hotter than 80 degrees. Usually around 120 is where you will kill your yeast (or so I’ve read). So possibly a faulty thermometer? You’re fine just adding the dry yeast directly to the wort. Most people on this site will tell you that rehydrating dry yeast is a waste of time.
While I agree that it is generally just fine to add the dry yeast directly to the wort, I would disagree with rehydrating being a waste of time. I always rehydrate when making wine. I’ve had a few experiences where the yeast came out of the package dead. With beer, it is not as important; you start with a lot more cells in a lower stress environment than you have with wine, but I did once get a dead package of dry beer yeast as well. That said, I go back and forth with rehydrating yeast for beer. Sometimes I do it, sometimes not.
