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[rtu]

I started a 5.5 gal batch of traditional yesterday that will later be split into 5 - 1 gal batches as follows:
1 gal Strawberry
1 gal Blueberry
1 gal Metheglin (spices are TBD at this point)
1 gal oaked
1 gal remains traditional

This is essentially a 5 gal batch for me to do some experimenting re. technique, etc.

The recipe is:
14 lbs Fruitwood Orchards Clover Honey
2 lbs Fruitwood Orchards Wildflower Honey
4.2 gals H20
10g ICV-D47

No particular reason for the honey choices other than that's what I had on hand.

Added 12.5g Go-Ferm then rehydrated the yeast and pitched on 01 Feb 2014 @ 19:05 with no additional nutrients beyond the Go-Ferm.

The intent is to add 2 does of Fermaid K & DAP @ post-lag & 1/3, followed by a 3rd addition of Fermaid K @ 2/3.

24 hours later there is still no sign of fermentation at all. SG has been consistent @ 1.103 since start (actually my first measurement was 1.105 but since the last 3 have been dead on at 1.103, I'm considering the initial temp corrected 1.105 to be in error a bit). Must temperature is 68F.

I did make some procedural errors when rehydrating my yeast. I was trying to be a bit too precise with H2O temps and ended up pitching the yeast a little on the cool side (maybe 95F) and possibly cut short the rehydration time by a few minutes since I did not start my timer as soon as I started to rehydrate.

So I'm thinking I may have not given the D47 a fair start out of the gate.

I'm not worried at this point but am thinking that I'll let it go to maybe 48 hours before I take corrective action, which I think would consist of nothing more than re-pitching the D47, but being much more careful about procedure.

Does anyone see any flaws in this? Or does this make sense?

 

[Fisk Jaegaren]

Make a starter

 

[fatbloke]

Lag phase........ give it a week........

 

[GntlKnigt1]

Seems rather slow, but I have not used D47 before, and I always do a starter, to wit;
Starter – I usually make a yeast starter. Put 2 cups of room temp water in a bottle that can be fitted with a fermentation lock. Add ¼ cup honey, 1/8 tsp DAP/starter, 1/8 tsp nutrient/energizer, and 1 tsp of the selected yeast. Shake it vigorously to mix, put on fermentation lock, and allow it to ferment from 3 to 40 hours, depending on variables like temp, amount of must (1 gallon? 6? More?), yeast reproduction rate (how dense is the putty color of starter?) etc. About 6 hours before pitching the starter, begin adding (reserved and UNsulfited must) to the starter, about 1 cup every 2 hours to allow the yeast to adapt to the must environment. WHY? I usually use dry yeast and this is a way to conserve on yeast, and to get the must off to a much quicker start, thereby minimizing the opportunity for stray yeast to contaminate it

 

[rtu]

I'll wait a bit longer as suggested and if that doesn't work make a starter. That's why I thought I should sanity check before I did anything.

Thank you all.

 

[ostensibly]

I've never made a starter but when I rehydrate D-47 using go-ferm it always seems to take a couple of days to get going.

 

[rtu]

This is the first time that I have used this particular process. Up until now I have been adding the first round of DAP/Fermaid K to the must then pitch the yeast that was rehydrated with Go-Ferm. I generally see very active fermentation within 12 hours when doing that.

After doing a lot of reading on the forums here and other resources, I decided to modify my process a bit. So a lag time of 48 hours seemed a lot compared to my previous attempts. I thought I was being very patient at 48 hours. I guess not as patient as I thought.

I think this will produce a better result, but I will obviously have to adjust my thinking a bit on timing of the various phases of fermentation.

 

[rtu]

Looks like the yeasties finally finished the lag phase. Took slight less than 48 hours but the SG dropped to 1.096 and there were definite CO2 bubbles coming from the must.

So once again it seems that the key is "patience, followed by patience, and some more patience" to paraphrase someone that obviously has more of it than I do.