Ravenshead

Recipes 

Look for a crack on the hyd. A small, almost invisible leak will cause your hyd to sink too much and give you bad readings that may disappear or change over time as the leak drys out.

Look very carefully, they can be really sneaky.

Edit: Wow, you brewed this on 5/4 and saw nothing but floaties on 5/5? I've never seen a fermentation rise and fall that quick. It could happen, I just haven't seen it. Now I'm really confused.

__________________
[QUOTE]

o4_srt

Recipes 

I noticed you said your one batch tasted flat. How flat? Completely?

There is usually a tiny bit of carbonation after fermentation, at least, in my experience.

That's why carb calculators ask for the beer temperature when determining how much priming sugar to add. The calculators take into account how much co2 is already dissolved in the beer, then determine how much sugar is needed to produce the amount of co2 required.

If the beer is completely flat, chances are, it didn't ferment. Especially not overnight.

__________________
Facebite Brewing

Conditioning: Muddy Paw Nut Brown Ale, Jump The Fence Independence Cream Ale

jonmohno

Recipes 

Read how to brew by John Palmer and read post learn from this site first. Im glad i spent months in this forum researching before brewing even though i made a few annoying errors the first brews were not even dumpable.Just not as good after another few then a dozen...

BobTheAverage

Recipes 

The beer tastes like beer that has been left in a bottle too long. I guess its not completely flat.

After pulling the hydrometer out of my beer i saw beer down in the bottom of the hydrometer. Guess this shoots down the REALLY high alcohol beer thing.

I pitched the first yeast on 5/1 and then didn't open it up until 5/4 when I repitched. I may not have noticed the floaties of 5/4. My brewer is in a dimly lit closet. I guess that I missed the foam entirely.

Also I used a pan of boiling water to sanitize my hydrometer because I had already dumped my sanitizer. I guess this was a bad idea because the the heat must have cracked it.

That is very good advice and it is where I am getting most of my guidance from. I guess the "no fermentation" was a little bit of hyperbole in the title of the thread.

Ravenshead

Recipes 

You very easily could have missed the full fury of the ferment over three days. That, plus the broken hydrometer tells me you probably have a good beer working.

Get a new hydrometer and don't boil it.

Also, many will advise you to keep a spare around the house, they break easily.

__________________
[QUOTE]

BobTheAverage

Recipes 

Any idea where I can pick a hydrometer up locally. My nearest LHBS is 300 miles away.

Thanks for all the help from everyone. I really do appreciate it even if it was mostly to calm my worried mind.

joetothemo

Recipes 

Morebeer.com has a deal going for free shipping on orders of $39 and up. If you also wanna get started ordering ingredients for that next batch, that may be the way to go.

__________________


In Primary:
Hoppy Wheat Beer (Chinook/Citra/Amarillo)

In Secondary:
Father's Day IPA (Chinook/Cascade/Centennial/Amarillo/Simcoe)


In Bottles:
Citra-Amarillo Pale Ale
Jamil American Amber Ale

BobTheAverage

Recipes 

Yeah well I already have the ingredients for my next batch so that doesn't do me a lot of good. I have "repaired" my hydrometer and it will work for a while I hope.

GreenDragon

Recipes 

I struggled a lot with yeast when I first started too. I had to double pitch my first batch and switch yeast on my second.

I'd suggest you start doing starters. I haven't had a single problem since i switched to starters.

__________________
-------------------------------------------------
Keg 1 : Empty
Keg 2 : Empty
Keg 3 : Empty
Bottle Conditioning: White House Honey Ale (AG version)
Fermenting: Yorkshire Oatmeal Stout
Fermenting: Yet to be named Irish Red

Air Capital Brewery
http://www.aircapitalbrewery.com <-- Just so no one can steal my brewery name.