Please help, Fermentation won't start

[JammyBStard]

I've had a bit of disastrous brew day, see my post in brewdays viewtopic.php?f=24&t=19183

I made a litre of healthy looking yeast starter in advance (Nottingham) and pitched half last night.
THis morning nothing had happened so I pitched the other half about 5 hours ago and there's still no activity.

I have some SO4 I could try but I don’t know if this is a wise thing to do?

Any help appreciated!

[Whorst]

Chill out and wait. My guess is that it starts.

[JammyBStard]

Chill out and wait. My guess is that it starts.

What sort of length of time is an acceptible wait, am I totally jumping the gun? I'm used to it kicking off within 6 hours!

[JammyBStard]

Cheers Chris

Starters aren't advisable when using dried yeasts

This is news to me! Why is it not a good idea?

[JammyBStard]

Dried yeast manufacturers propogate yeast in such a way that they build in glycogen reserves into the yeast itself and there are sufficient cells in an 11g pack of dried yeast to ferment up to 25L of 1048 wort.

If you make a 1L starter you wont get any cell growth and you will use up the built in reserves, you're also likely to kill off a few cells while your at it. If you are making a beer that requires a higher cell count you're better off using an extra pack of yeast.

Makes perfect sense! I now know for next time!

Looks like the panic is over anyway, in just the last two hours a layer of white has formed on the top and there's a little pressure in the air lock. I might even be a bit optimistic and fit a blow off tube!

Cheers all

[Stonechat]

For posts like this someone clever might come up with a "patience grasshopper" type smiley or cartoon just to give the yeast time to work it's magic

[boingy]

That patience ingredient can be quite tricky. I seem to have loads then suddenly I am out of stock. Can you buy it online?

[youreds91]

So getting back to (and paraphrasing) the OP's follow-up question... how long do I need to be patient? It's past 72 hours now since I pitched, and nuthin. I've never had it take this long before.

You did cool your wort to below 30°C before pitching didn't you?

Me thinks you've killed the yeast, bang in another sachet & I reckon you'll be away.

CD