Little to no fermentation, what to do

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NoH20

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I don't think I had enough oxygen in my wort. After 72 hours, there appeared no activity. I have a Mini-brew conical, so it's hard to see what's going on.

I dumped some from the bottom valve and took a reading. Same as my OG, so that's not a good sign.

I decided to remove the top and take a peak. Looked like krausen in top, but I could see some of the dry yeast mixed in as well.

I sterilized a spoon and stirred gently a bit to get the yeast down in there.

Not sure what else to do? What if there isn't enough oxygen? Why the krausen on top (maybe the top layer of wort had some oxygen from transfer?).

Hate to throw my first batch out :-(

Todd
 
What yeast did you pitch?

It would be helpful to know this, plus:

- did you rehydrate the dry yeast before pitching?

- at what temp wort did you pitch?

- what temp is it at now?

- Was the dry yeast more than a year old? How was it stored?
 
Yeast was us-05, purchased day prior. I used it dry, wort was about 70, currently at 64 (electronically controlled).
 
I'd recommend pitching another sachet of US-05 especially after 72 hours of no activity. US-05 is pretty robust. What type of beer is it and what was your OG?
 
American ale - 1.057 OG

Was supposed to be a 5 gallon recipe, got about 3. A lot boiled off. I used someone else recipe, and I think they were short on the amount of water (think it was 5.7 pre-boil, maybe they meant 6.7).

Definitely learned a lot and will change a few things next time.
 
Also, there must have been some activity if there was the krausen on top?

My mini-brew is 8 gallon I think, batch was waaaay short of that, so a lot of head room.
 
NoH20 said:
Also, there must have been some activity if there was the krausen on top?

My mini-brew is 8 gallon I think, batch was waaaay short of that, so a lot of head room.

Good point. To the OP, can you post a picture of the krausen?
 
are you taking gravity correctly?

refractometer will be wrong once fermentation has started...unless you use a correction calculator/formula.
 
Will need to crack it open again to take a pic of krausen, but it was a layer of foam about 1/2 inch, some greenish color in it, pretty typical.

I did use a refractometer. Just thought it was odd it was 14 brix pre-boil, and 14 brix from bottom sample today. Now, bottom sample left out on counter was bubbling a tiny bit. Tasted like shyt too :)
 
Will need to crack it open again to take a pic of krausen, but it was a layer of foam about 1/2 inch, some greenish color in it, pretty typical.

I did use a refractometer. Just thought it was odd it was 14 brix pre-boil, and 14 brix from bottom sample today. Now, bottom sample left out on counter was bubbling a tiny bit. Tasted like shyt too :)

Once it starts producing alcohol, your refractometer readings are going to be more and more off (high) as more alcohol becomes present. You have to use a calculator to compensate and I'm not sure how that's going to work at this stage of the game.

Do you happen to have a hydrometer handy? From your description of it and the info you gave about the pitch and ferment temps (kudos to you for using temp control, btw), it sounds like you have fermentation going on.
 
So, good news I think. Took a sample from the "side" port in the conical and checked that with a hydrometer. Just a bit under 1.04, so it's coming down. I left the sample in the tube on the counter for a bit and can definitely see activity.

So, might not be an award winner, but it will look like beer and contain alcohol, so I must have done a few things correctly :).

One issue I had was the mash temp was low. Bad thermometer. I figured it out about 30 minutes it. Boiled a bit of water and added that in and let it go about 10 minutes past 60. I still hit projected OG.

Like I said, learned a lot and I think next go around will be much better.
 
One issue I had was the mash temp was low. Bad thermometer. I figured it out about 30 minutes it. Boiled a bit of water and added that in and let it go about 10 minutes past 60. I still hit projected OG.

I can relate on the thermometer issue. I had a couple batches recently with lower efficiency than normal. I did some double and triple-checking last night on my thermometers and found that the floater I sometimes use inside the mash tun was off (reading high by as much as 7*F!!!). I also found that BOTH of my hydrometers were a tad off (one high, one low). Grrrrrrrrr.:mad:

Let it ride. Hopefully it will turn out tasty.
 
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