jiggerachi

Recipes 

Thought my experience was releveant to this thread so i'll post it here.

I brewed my 3rd batch saturday, a Franziskaner Heffeweisen clone. Parshial mash with the white labs liquid yeast. My other two, a Hoegarden clone and a stout, were done partial mash, but with the grain bag method. 1st batch, the Hoegarden clone came out ok, some funky off flavors in a few of the beers but most of them were surprisingly pretty good. The stout is still fermenting but tasted a hydrometer sample and it seems good. Anyway I was very excited because this was going to be my first serious batch. I read everything I could for the last month preparing for this one, bought a huge 7 gallon boiler and built my own mash/lauder tun from a cooler, this one was going to be awesome. Only problem...the ingredients had been sitting in my fridge and cabinet for over 6 to 8 months (long story), and since i've never brewed with liquid yeast I didn't realize until it was too late that the yeast had expired. I tried to throw together a starter (after feverishly googling) which failed terribly. I just said oh well and threw it in anyway, it was too far to turn back.

After about 42 hours of nervous waiting I saw no activity in the bucket. I was panicking about to buy more yeast to repitch, but after reading this thread I took a cool approach and gathered a hydrometer sample. I noticed a small head on the surface which was a good sign, but very small could have been anything. The reading was a tiny bit lower so it was working...a little bit, I hoped. Was still too close to call, we had been drinking for awhile when we took the OG reading so I was still unsure if it was accurate. Tasted the sample and it was definitley a little fizzy so I was somewhat assured, but still nervous.

Followed what I read here I gave it a good shake and the bucket immediately foamed like crazy, foam got in the airlock and leaked all over the outside of the bucket. I cleaned it up and refilled the airlock and went to bed. Next morning im getting 2 to 3 bubbles per second, and the entire room smells very strongly like bananas.

So yea, take it from a worried beginner just like yourselves. Just wait. it's pretty hard to screw this process up, the yeast really do know what to do, just sometimes need a kick in the pants to wake them up.

cmoon

Recipes 

Just wanted to chime in. I started my third batch in this weekend (counting Mr. Beer *sighs*) and was pretty nervous since I was following a 90 min IPA clone recipe. With higher alcohol content I did a yeast starter and actually 'double pitched', putting the yeast starter underneath and pouring a new smackpack of the same yeast on top of the wort. Only on the 3rd day did I finally get some confirmation that fermentation was definitely underway. I'm elated now, but those three days had me pretty stressed out.

breakonthru

Recipes 

I started my first batch on friday..started bubbling 24 hrs later which was great but 2 days later it stopped...should i worry?

boog321

Recipes 

Nah, depending on the ingredients it could slow way down, but still be fermenting.

Hang tight, and let it go it's time, and I would bet all will be cool! I'm on my 3rd batch, and they will slow way down 2-5 days in.

breakonthru

Recipes 

How long do you think i should wait till i test it?

boog321

Recipes 

It seems that most around here let it go in the primary 2-4 weeks. I plan on letting the batch I started last night go at least 3 if it clears, and quite possibly 4.

So, I would say no less than 2 weeks.

But like I said, I'm only on my 3rd batch, still learning, and experimenting a bit. Others are much more experienced around here.

mclane2003

Recipes 

Just wanted to reiterate that patience is often key. Just had a Wheat beer take about 40 hours before it started showing visible signs of fermentation.

My brew cycle is typically 2 weeks in the primary, 2 weeks in the secondary, 3 weeks in the bottle. This allows me to brew every other weekend and it produces pretty good beer.

Yevmeister

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quick question to the pros

so friday night i made my first batch
i was little clumsy since i did it first time, i added yeast, when i put a cover on the fermenter, and i tried to stick airlock, the rubber isolating ring fell through.

so i emptied wort into the sanitized kettle, fished out that rubber ring put it in place, dumped all the wort back into fermenter bucket

so yesterday it was bubbling like crazy, and now it seems that fermentation process is slowing down i get a bubble every minute or so

a my doing okay?

thanks,

Yev

Orfy

Recipes 

Sounds like a typical first batch to me. Infact this was the first question asked by one of our very experienced mods.

__________________
GET THE GOBLIN
Have a beer on me.

Yevmeister

Recipes 

thanks, we'll see what happens

Yev