Pitch new yeast?

[howbrewyoudo]

Made a pale ale yesterday, 1.052 og. Pitched a package of rehydrated safale- 05 yeast. A bit over 24 hours now, barely any action in my airlock. Temperature is steady around 64 degrees. Never had this issue with any brew before. Should I pitch another package of yeast? Do I aerate the wort again?

 

[Yooper]

Made a pale ale yesterday, 1.052 og. Pitched a package of rehydrated safale- 05 yeast. A bit over 24 hours now, barely any action in my airlock. Temperature is steady around 64 degrees. Never had this issue with any brew before. Should I pitch another package of yeast? Do I aerate the wort again?

Wait at least another 24 hours. It should be fine. It sounds like it's going, although airlock activity being slow isn't a reliable sign of fermentation.

 

[BrewPharm]

Just wait it out. Way to early to do anything at this point.

 

[howbrewyoudo]

Thanks for the amazingly quick responses. At what point should I do something? How else should I check if fermentation is occurring, check the gravity?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the amazingly quick responses. At what point should I do something? How else should I check if fermentation is occurring, check the gravity?

Yes, you can. But what you can do instead of checking the gravity is sometimes just open up the fermenter after about 48 hours and see krausen and other signs of yeast activity and know it's working just fine.

I have a semi-opaque bucket that I just love, because light can't get to it, but I can see when a krausen rises even if there is no airlock activity.

Airlocks may bubble during fermentation, but other times there might be a little leak around the lid and you never see a bubble. That's why airlocks are not a reliable indicator of the lack of fermentation.

 

[BigFloyd]

Airlocks may bubble during fermentation, but other times there might be a little leak around the lid and you never see a bubble. That's why airlocks are not a reliable indicator of the lack of fermentation.

+1. It's nice to see the bubbles (I enjoy them quite a lot), but it doesn't take much of a leak to let the CO2 out some other way.

What was your pitch temp? If you pitched rehydrated US-05 into 1.052 wort that wasn't overly-hot, it would be rare for fermentation to not occur. And you pitched plenty of cells unless that packet was really old or had been somehow abused.