Nightmare Brewnight!

Had a mate over last night, we were brewing an all grain Japur clone...... All went well till the bloody boiler cut out! So empty into a FV clean element and start again (Had 15 mins left in the boil) - gets a boil started again the click! Off it went..... In the end I just chucked the 15 and 5 mins Citra hops in, left for a bit then chilled as normal.

This keeps happening so today I removed the element for a proper clean and bypassed the thermostat, hopefully next time will be ok. Also used live yeast for a change WLP07 Dry English, any idea how long the lag time is? I was expecting to get up today and find it bubbling away?

Those Wyeast and White Lab packs always have a decent lag the first time out in my experience. I now make starters 1-2 times over to build up lots of viable yeast. Lag time cuts right down to as little as a few hours this way.

Hi Blinky,
I use WLP007 quite a lot, pitching a 1.5litre starter it's always up and running in 4hrs.

Well its been 15hrs and no sign of activity

Well its been 15hrs and no sign of activity

Take a gravity reading to make sure.

What temperature was the yeast and wort? Were they roughly the same? Also did you oxygenate the wort or get some air into it? Lag phase is usually over after 15hrs depending on some of the factors I've mentioned. If it hasn't started after about 18hrs it looks like there's a problem somewhere.

Just bottled this today - fermentation lag was about 48 hrs! It smells and tastes fantastic!

Glad to hear it turned out good. You'll probably find that the yeast will perform much better 2-3 brews in.

It's the same when we acid-wash at the brewery - the yeast is a bit sluggish, but the next brew after we've skimmed the FVs it's back to normal.