SF Lager Yeast fermentation?

[Thure]

I just brewed my first Cal. Common the day before yesterday, but I havent really seen any activity in the bubbler yet. I have it standing at 61F in a fridge. The full vile of yeast was piched into the 5 gal of OG 1042 wort at 58F.
I know that it is a hybrid lager and that it's not as fast to go off as a normal ale, but still, wouldn't I have seen some activity in the bubbler by now?

As I started out by saying, this is my first Calli Common and my first lager, so I havn't got any Xperience with this kind of beer.

[DannyW]

It should take off fine at 58F, as long as the yeast is healthy and happy. My last batch with that yeast I pitched at 52F and it took off just fine.

Did you aerate/oxygenate? If so, how?

Doesn't help much this time, but next time you might want to make a starter just to show yourself that the yeast isn't dead. Might have had a rough trip across the pond.

[Thure]

I aerated by letting the cool wort splash down from my boiler into my fermentation bucket. Its a 2 feet drop and creates a lot of foam. Has always worked with my ales and wheats.
The yeast was as fresh as I could get it which will say less than a month old from production and I followed the instructions on the side and the instructions given by the Whites in the last Whites yeast show, so should be OK.
I have never had a vile of WLP that wasn't good.

I thought of making a starter, but then again didn't want to risk getting any nasties in my wort now that I knew that it was a lager yeast and it might take of a little slower than what I was use to.

[DannyW]

Any signs of life in that fermenter yet? If not, you might want to give it a shot of O2 and a stir roust the yeast. If there is any foam at all, don't do that though.

[Thure]

Non... There was no foam or anything.
It's not allowed to have a tank of O2 lying around in Denmark without a permit, so thats out of the question, but perhaps I could take it out of the fridge and see if there isn't any activity when the wort warms up and then put it back in.

[Spidey]

I love this yeast. I've made a couple of lager-style beers with it since I don't have a lagering fridge, and they've turned out great. In addition to not having fancy equipment for temperature control, I don't have any equipment for aeration either. I know these things can be done on the cheap, but why bother if I have something that works, right? First, I definitely recommend making a starter. IMO, you should always make a starter with lager yeast, including this relatively warm fermenting strain. After pitching the starter into my cooled wort (which only gets aeration by splashing), I keep the carboy a little on the warm side at 70F for about 6-8 hours. This seems to get things moving along nicely. Then I move the carboy to my "cool spot" in the house where temps in the winter hover about 60F, and leave it there for the remainder of fermentation and conditioning. I brew extract, and this seems to ferment everything out well, dropping the FG down to 1.015ish. My guess, for whatever it's worth, is that something happened to the yeast if it's not doing anything. You might have to pitch another packet of yeast.