3 week old WLP001 and a huge slurry that won't start.

[hopbumpingbrewer]

I have harvested my yeast from my last ipa and it was beautiful. I stored it for 3 weeks at 36 degrees. I pitched a huge slurry of it into my 1.074 stout at 68 degrees.
It has been 3 days and nothing is happening. I talked to Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing Co and he said to start panicing. He also told me how to get it going with dry yeast, sugar and water.

My question is this. Is my stout destroyed?

I have never reused my yeast because of junk like this, but I had to try. Any thoughts at all.

[Danno]

Three weeks at 36°F will not be a problem. This thing should go off like a rocket. How old was it when you pulled it from the IPA?

I'm thinking that your fermenter is not sealed well and it's fermenting but you just don't know it yet. Do you see any signs of fermentation (other than looking at the air lock)?

-Dan

[hopbumpingbrewer]

The yeast was 8 days old when I pulled it from the ipa. I have not looked inside yet. I hate to say that but you may be right. I thought the same thing. It should absolutely take off. The yeast started bubbling in the container it was stored in before I piched it.

It was at room temp and when I shook it up in the container it went nuts. Go figure. I will check it out and let you know. Thanks so much for the response.

Carlo

[Ozbrewer]

some things you need to consider.....

What was the strength of the IPA you pulled the yest from, if it was a high grave beer youll have very little chance of it starting again?

are you haveing no action in your air lock, or is there no action on the top of the wort, have a look and see if there is any foaming....

did you rince the yeast slurry in anyway or ws it just put in a container into the fridge, 36 deg is fine no problem there



as far as pitching some dry yeast, no worries there either, i would suggest 3 packets of US56 being that your pitching into a higher grav beer.

[jamilz]

Another possibility, if the wort was warm when you pitched the yeast, is that it is already done fermenting. Hard to tell what happened without being there. Most of these answers depend a lot on temperature and if you're using a bucket or a carboy.

[hopbumpingbrewer]

Thanks everyone very very much. All are very real possibilities.
But the fact is......There are gaskets on the B3 conicals that TEND TO SLIP to the side.
That is what happend.
I am very cautious when it comes to opening the lid and letting in bacteria. I felt around it and everything seemed ok. But feeling that I really had nothing to lose I lifted the lid and found the problem. THE GASKET!

I checked the gravity and it had already dropped from 1.074 to 1.024. In 3 days I'd say that it is doing great. I fixed the problem and all is well.

Once again thanks everyone for all your comments and troubleshooting with me. I really do appreciate it.

Carlo
p.s. Jamil, I pitched at 68 degrees the yeast was room temp. I don't think that is considered warm for an ale is it?

[Ozbrewer]

if i may answer for Jamil.....68 is fine, but if your beer fermented out in 3 days, i would say that it was much warmer, yeast will give of heat as it works its way through the brew, making the wort warmer, making the yeast work harder/faster, its a bit of a chain reaction, i would not be surpried, knowing that yeast fairly well, if the temp got up around 86 deg

[hopbumpingbrewer]

Oz,
I would agree with you if I had no control over the temp, but I run a digitally controlled fridge that was running for 2 days straight. I never saw the temp go above 69. I use a thermowell that sits in the middle of the conical with a digital thermometer inside. The firdge is controlled by it.

I starter with 1 vile and over a 4 week period I grew it by means of multiple starters. Every week I did a new starter bigger and bigger each time. By the time it got into my ipa it was the 4 generation.

Being 5 generations after the ipa batch and and a commercial White Labs Container half full with that WLP001 (enough for a 20 gallon batch or more) I was not so surprised.

Thanks again Oz, your help all over the forum is really appreciated by me.

Carlo