Slow start wl500 trappist

[wilsojos]

Brewed my first nonkit extract batch Saturday night, 3 gallons of water at start, 3lb specialty grain, .5lb of 6 different grains steeped 45 minutes, 5lb extra pale dme, 2/3 oz willamette for 90 min, .5 oz fuggles for 20 min and .5 oz fuggles for 0 min. I had 2 gallons of water in the freezer during the entire boil which got added to 80 degree wort. The final temp seemed to end up around 65 degrees which I thought would be perfect. Pitched wl500 trappist yeast.

I normally rehydrate dry yeast and get less than 24 hour starts. This one took 36-40 hours to get going. Any obvious reason for the lag? The wl500 vial said 5-15 hours that's what's got me wondering. Are there any negative side effects of mixing cooled wort with really cold, almost frozen top off water?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about this batch. Just curious if I'm doing anything that would not be considered a best practice.

 

[LLBeanJ]

This one can take a little while to get going. Did you make a starter?

 

[wilsojos]

I did not, I never have. I want to learn to do it, but it seems time consuming and somewhat complicated. I have read that it makes a huge difference, probably the biggest in how the final product turns out.

 

[TarheelBrew13]

The temperature you pitch at is going to impact how fast a beer takes off. I usually have a lag of about 4-8 hours with wlp500 but I pitch at 72F. Whatever temp you pitch at, you want to get the temp of the yeast and the temp of the wort as close as possible.

 

[LLBeanJ]

65° is a little on the cool side for that strain, but should've been fine. No starter would likely contribute more to the slow start, particularly if you underpitched, which is generally the case when using liquid yeast without a starter, regardless of what the package/vial states.

Starters can be made in 15-20 minutes and are a piece of cake. yeastcalc.com is a great site for taking the guesswork out of determining the needed pitch rate and required starter size. Also, a stir plate is helpful, but not essential. Do a youtube search for "yeast starter". There are a number of informative videos out there.

 

[Silverbullet]

Wl500 has always taken a very long time to start for me. I use a 2L starter w/stir plate for every batch (needed or not) and every other yeast strain I've used has kicked off very quickly. Not the 500....this stuff generally takes at least 24hr to get cranking in a 1.040 starter with nutrient and has taken as long as 72+hrs. Proper temps, stir plate, starters ranging from 1.050-1.030 (seeing if that made a difference) in ideal settings and it doesn't seem to make a difference.....500 is a slow riser. Once it gets crankin' though, it's game on.