Gerber54

Recipes 

Hello everyone I have a question about our first all grain batch, my roommates an I put together an all grain recipe we are trying to make a west coast style IPA. When we tested the gravity of the cooled wort it came it to 1.062 thought everything looked good so we capped it up (we are using a fermenting bucket) tossed in the air lock and set it aside in a corner of the house that always stays around 65 degrees. After three days of not seeing any kind of activity from the air lock I popped out the air lock to see what was going in inside. There is a pretty thick green sludge/foam sitting on the top and some tinny bubbles popping up all around the surface. So I capped it back and let it go for anther day. Still no bubbling from the air lock. I checked everything made sure the cap was on tight. We were very careful with sanitation and everything. My main questions are is this normal, how concerned should I be? I know that primary fermentation can be violent for lack of a better word I attribute the green color to the hops but it still didnt seem right to me. Any help or insight would be awesome.

Thanks for the help,
Stephen

duboman

Recipes 

The thick layer you are seeing is the krausen and it means the beer is fermenting. Most likely you have a leaky seal in the lid and the gasses are escaping from somewhere else, not a problem and can happen. Give it another few days and take a gravity reading if you want or leave it alone for 10 days or so and then check to be sure the gravity has dropped.

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CastleHollow

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Remember that airlock activity is not an indicator of fermentation. From your description it sounds like you're at high krausen, which is normal in that 3-4 day window. Sounds like it's fine. What yeast did you use?

Gerber54

Recipes 

We work at a brewery/restaurant we had some yeast that was harvested that day.

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

Proabably a leaky bucket lid if you had nice fresh yeast like that. I have a couple myself that won't bubble because gas escapes around the lid.

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Gerber54

Recipes 

Great I feel very relieved this is pretty much what I expected but its good to hear from a few people that have already experienced it.

Thanks Guys