aeonderdonk

Recipes 

I'm not sure if I did this right or if it's working. Here's what I've done:

1) Sanitize half gallon glass growler and rinse
2) Add cooled wort made from boiling one pint water with 2/3 cup DME
2) Refrigerate Beer
3) Sanitize neck of bottle and cap
4) Pop Cap
5) Sanitize opening by swabbing with papertowel soaked with sanitizer
6) Pour beer into glass, saving last inch or so with sediment
7) Swirl beer around to get sediment off bottom
8) Pour into grolwer
9) Repeat for 6 pack
10) Cover with plastic wrap and loosely secure with rubber band.
11) Store in pantry at ~72*

I did all this last night and woke up this morning to see a bunch of brownish trub at the bottom, can't tell if there is a yeast layer or not. Should I be seeing any krausen? How long should it take to know whether it's working and how will I know?


Any advice?

springer

Recipes 

if you didn't put any fresh wort in the growler it wont do nothing. Make up some starter and add the sediment and see what happens.

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JPicasso

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I would put it back into the fridge, chill for a day or two, and then decant off any beer, and pitch into a small starter. That will tell you if you have any viable yeast. After it's done fermenting, put it back into the fridge for storage.

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aeonderdonk

Recipes 

I did put wort in the growler. Boiled 1 pint with 1/4 cup DME. Cooled it and added sediment to it. I can't tell whether any fermentation is happening, all sitting at the bottom. I'm not sure if it's dead or already fermented out. There were about 12 hours between the time that I finished adding beer dregs and checked it.

FlyingHorse

Recipes 

I did basically the same thing with a sixer of Two Hearted about a month ago. It was pretty tough to see any activity (you're starting with a really small amount of yeast). I stepped it up several times (pint/quart/2q) and ended up with a decent amount of yeast.

The resulting batch of Two Hearted clone is dry-hopping in the keg as I write this, and tastes awesome.

Step your starter up a couple times, at about ~24 hours apart. You should see some yeast growth.

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Rick500

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Check the specific gravity and see if it's less than where it started. If it's substantially below where it started (or where it probably started, if you didn't measure), then it fermented.

springer

Recipes 

is the wort cloudy or does it look like an amber beer ? If its a cloudy brown the yeast is working . I would just keep shaking it every few hours and see how it reacts

when you shake it it should look like this. The head is the CO2 leaving solution

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aeonderdonk

Recipes 

I'll have to give it a good shake when I get home. Hopefully it will work out.

aeonderdonk

Recipes 

shook it up periodically last night and this morning all i see are some tiny bubbles on the top, doesnt look like any yeast is reproducing. Anyone know where I went wrong?

EvilTOJ

Recipes 

A 1/4 cup of DME won't really do much for yeast propagation. When I've made starters I use at LEAST a cup, usually more. I'm sure it's fermented out already, you'll need to keep adding wort to get more yeast cells.

Also, there's very little activity with starters as it is.

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