Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I made a batch of Oktoberfest/marzen beer with Billy on Saturday.  However, the lager yeast did not really kick off in the starter.  It appeared to have some yeast activity, but not a lot.  I pitched it in my wort anyway, and I have had no action in the beer as of this morning (about 30 hours later).  I am concerned that the yeast is not going to be able to really get going and that I may have off flavors in my beer.  As a back up measure, I would like to put some dry lager yeast in, but Fermentation Trap does not open again until tomorrow night (Tues, 8-26).  Does anyone have some spare lager yeast I can have before then?  Help.

So what happened? Pray do tell.

Ok, here are the details:

- I had no fermentation activity as of Tuesday morning (3 days out), but the beer was at lager temperature (~50 F), so I was not totally flipping out
- I stopped by Fermentation Trap that evening and they were very helpful and I got dry lager yeast to put in the beer (I wanted a quick turn around so the batch did not sour, even if I lost some yeast character).  The guys at Fermentation Trap told me they are switching yeast distributors and getting stuff directly from Wyeast now.  Yay.
- I pitched 11 g of Fermentis dry lager yeast to the beer, following the directions on the back of the pack, which was the recommended pitching rate
- I had active fermentation by Thursday when I got home from work, so a total lag time of 5 days

We will see how it turns out.  As in these situations, it could have been worse and it could have been better.  Such are the joys of homebrew.