Yesterday I brewed or tried to brew a Kolsch beer. But somethng went wrong and I tried to correct it. But 24 hour later I still have no activity in my beer. The yeast os doing nothing. Here is what happened:
I wanted to brew 20 liters in total so I heated up 12 liters of water to
50 degrees Celsius ( sorry US friends, but I dont know farenheit). Meanwhile I milled 3200 gr pils milled grain and 800 gr wheat milled grain with my new mill and I slung it all by hand. I tested the water and the PH was rather high, so I used a substance from my brewing store to bring it down to 5.1ph. I added the milled grains. I was supposed to heat it up to 65 degrees C for 60 minutes, but half way through my new burner was a bit over zealous and my thermometer told me I had accidentally taken it to 78 degrees celsius. Realizing I had killed many enzymes I had to stop and recalculate. I added 5 liters of water and 600 gr pils milled grain and 400 gr wheat milled grain. Now I put the heat back on under the mash and heated it up to 65 degrees celsius and watched it better this time and kept it at that temp for 60 minutes. Then heated it up to 70 degrees for 15 minutes and then 78 degrees for 5 minutes. I then filtered the wort into another pan and during filtration, I washed the mash out by adding water up to 35 liters. I brought all of this to a boil and added 50 gr Saaz hop korrels and stirred all the time. Then added 6 gr Irish Moss. I boiled for 80 minutes. Afterwards I used a sterile cooler and filtered into my yeasting can with lid and water stop. The gravity was way too high for Kolsch. It was 1073. So after some calculation which a mathemetician friend did for me I added more water to the wort ( 12 and 1/2 liters) and measured gravity again. It was now 1050. The wort was cooled down to about 25 degrees celsius so I added my yeast starter ( Nottingham dry yeast korrels mixed with pre boiled water cooled down to 20 degrees C).Everything was done super sterile. I was meticulous about that. But after 24 hours, my beer is lying still. The yeast is doing nothing. No bubbles, no foaming, nothing. I have it in my living room and the temperature is at least 22 degrees celsius. I am worried now that I did a days work for nothing. Does anybody have any ideas as what to do next? If the yeast does not start working, is there enything I can do? Can I add more yeast starter? Or maybe use a smack pack and save it after all.
I hope some helpfull soul will have taken the time to read all this abd maybe help out.
Regards,
JL