Viable yeast?

Yeast & Fermentation
1

I decanted and pitched (@ 65F) these two bad boys into my stout (1.068) yesterday at 3:30pm. No activity some 20 hours later. Surely the whitish layer was/is viable yeast.

Oh, they were harvested and cold crashed 48 hours earlier when I racked my mild ale over to keg.

thoughts? swirl/wait? RDWHAHB? buy some dry yeast and pitch it tomorrow?

:cheers:

2

Cold yeast, warm wort. Maybe there a little woosey from the sudden temp change. Give em a little more time to acclimate.

3

I let the yeast “warm” to the same temp as the wort, so they shouldn’t have been woosey. Oh, it was 1469 if that makes a difference.

:cheers:

4

I bet the cold crash put 'em to sleep. If it’s a quick starting fermentation you are after pich an active starter to wort of similar temperature. If you aerated properly though I’d say they are just gathering oxygen to reproduce and should kick off soon…

Since this yeast was harvested, it was dormant…

5

RDWHAHB. Give it 48-72hrs before thinking about repitching. I bet it’s rockin & rollin within the next 8-12hrs.

6

I let the yeast “warm” to the same temp as the wort, so they shouldn’t have been woosey. Oh, it was 1469 if that makes a difference.

:cheers: [/quote]

That could have something to do with it. When you warm the yeast up, they start consuming their glycogen reserves before they get into the beer. That slows things down. I take the yeast out of the fridge and pitch immediately to avoid that.

7

I didn’t pitch immediately because I was concened about the temp differential causing yeast shock…so cold wort, warm yeast is bad but cold yeast, cool wort is good?

cheers.

8

[quote=“StormyBrew”]I didn’t pitch immediately because I was concened about the temp differential causing yeast shock…so cold wort, warm yeast is bad but cold yeast, cool wort is good?

cheers.[/quote]
Good question, I’m wondering this too, and it seems to be what Denny does. I usually get my jar of yeast out at the beginning of the brew session to let it warm up, but maybe I’ll rethink that procedure.

9

Cold yeast to warmer wort is fine, but the other way around can shock the yeast into premature dormancy.