Raja did you rehydrate the notto before use? When I rehydrate i notice after 1/2 hour on the stir plate a fair amount of krausen activity. Whether or not this is a good sign of yeast health or not I don't know. In my own mind I liken it to a fast swelling smack of liquid yeast and I reckon now if I didn't see that activity I would looking for a different pitch of yeast. My 2c...
Nope - just pitched it at 25 degrees, and brought the fermenter down in temp.
I've never had to rehydrate Notto.
It's one of those yeasts that fires up very quickly without it, and finishes and drops out in 4 or 5 days (depending on fermenting temp).
So this day & half of no activity before I pitched the rehydrated swiss is very very out of character, from my personal experience.
I remember (as Bribie said) that a few years ago (before I ever used it), there was a dud batch that others were complaining about.
Seems the new packaging fixed it up, but this is a massive issue, if the yeast's reliability can't be counted on.
If it's the yeast (and not the brewer :lol: ), it'll start happening to others. That being the case, it's the second issue in *recent* memory.
That being the case, Lallemand will be damaging their brand. Because dry yeast users will either go "if Notto doesn't work, I'm just going to steer clear of Lallemand's products". They'll go find a safale/rebranded product instead.
Given I didn't want my Irish to be too estery, I could *probably* have used US-05. The biggest reason for Notto was a quicker ferment and
waaaaaay better flocculation. But! If I've got a choice between waiting and extra few days for ferment and CCing it a little longer vs yeast that's a little unreliable - guess which way I would go.
As it stands, it now has a lager yeast in there as a replacement, brewed at 14 degrees.
Goomba