Roeselare in primary lag phase

[whiterussian]

I brewed a Flanders Red ale on Sunday and pitched a packet of Wyeast Roeselare blend into the primary. 40 hours later I see no signs of fermentation. Is this normal? Should I add some US-05 to kickstart it or wait a bit longer?

[beerhed]

How old was the roselare pack? i brewed one myself three weeks ago. twelve gallon batch split between two carboys. I pitched a roselare pack in each. one was two weeks old at pitching the other was six weeks. the younger took off like a rocket and had krausen after six hours. The older pack took three days before there was krausen. the wort started at 1.058 and was at 1.011, and 1.012 when i racked to secondary. After all that, my point is to give it a few days. Especially if its an older pack.
Good luck! Kevin

[whiterussian]

The pack was dated from mid-May of this year. I guess I'll wait until tomorrow and then see what my options are (pitch some US-05 or something). Just concerned about a possible infection even though I took care to sanitize everything.

[beerhed]

A pack from May is pretty old. Try contacting Wyeast. They should be able to give you a better idea on how viable that pack is. I've had to make starters from older Wyeast packs before, and have had slow starts. I'd think it would be fine to pitch another Roselare pack if you can get a fresher one, but you might want to see if that would be ok considering the bugs that are in there from the first. You can also look in some of the other forums & ask other BNer's. I've got a lot of good advice from people around here.
Cheers! Kevin

[brewinhard]

did you aerate your batch? Even though this blend has lactobacillus it still can be aerated before pitching and the saccharomyces strain present would probably benefit from this. If your sanitation procedures are good, i really wouldn't worry too much about infections from other critters as the blend that you pitched will eventually take hold and drop the pH to the point where no other critters can survive. Last year I brewed a Flanders Pale and pitched the WY roselare blend in the primary. 48 hrs+ went by before any fermentation took place. I of course panicked and pitched half a packet of fermentis T-58. The batch took off the next day and I am still unsure which yeast did the work (if not both). After 7 days I racked the beer into a carboy with oak for aging and the gravity was 1020. 15 mos later just took a tasting and the product was mildly sour with a funky tart green apple thing (not really acetaldehyde). Half of the batch left in the carboy to age longer while the other half got 6# of fresh peaches. Sour wild beers definitely have a mind of their own and will tell YOU when the time is right.

[whiterussian]

I took a gravity sample this morning and it didn't change at all from the OG reading. I think the yeast wasn't viable because it was shipped to me from another state and took a while to get here. I pitched a new Roeselare packet today that I found locally and will now cross my fingers…

[brewinhard]

If that doesnt take off after 24 hrs I would then pitch some dry yeast like US-05 or T-58. The wild blend will still be in your wort and will work its way out over the course of the 1-2 yr fermentation so have no fear about that. It sounds like your saccharomyces strain in there just wasnt really up for the job to give you any fermentation strength. What was your OG?

[whiterussian]

The OG is 1.061. Still no visible fermentation activity 24 hours after pitching a fresh packet. I'll give it until tonight, and if I still don't see anything, I'll pitch some rehydrated US-05.