Better Bottle leaking

Oh God, I need help.

I brewed up a brown ale yesterday and transferred it to my 5 gallon better bottle carboy. When I went to check to see if fermentation had started about 12 hours later, I saw no activity. What I did see was a ring of wort surrounding the bottom of the bottle. I was hoping that this was wort spilled while moving the bottle in my basement, I cleaned up the spill. Sure enough, I checked back this morning and found more wort and still no fermentation.

A couple of questions:
1. Most importantly, do you think this batch is ruined by the slow leak? It's really very slow, so I don't think I will lose a lot of volume. My concern is the breach in the bottle and possible infection. If so I should just dump it I suppose.
2. If the beer isn't necessarily ruined, why is this thing not fermenting? I pitched a rehydrated packet of BRY-97 at the proper pitching temp (approx 70deg) and aerated using O2 injection for 2 minutes. My basement is a little cold, but I have a heat wrap on there with temperature controller to keep it steady at 68deg. Since the fermentation wasn't happening, I just bumped it up to 70deg.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Not bubbling does not equal not fermenting. You would need to check it with a hydrometer and compare it with the OG.

As for your carboy, I would transfer it to one that doesn't leak.

Yeah,there won't be much in there after a few weeks. Rack it to something else.

mine have taken over 12 hours to take off before.. as long as you rack to a new carboy (if there i a leak in there) you should be ok.. i think you may be wasting some O2 in your setup though.. depending on your flowrate you probably don't need a 2 min shot.. i do 30 seconds with the open/closed regulator i puchased form an online HBS and it seems to be good enough.. heck just shaking is good enough but that is my "insurance" plan..

do you know what the recommended temp for that yeast is?

I doubt it is a leak and would venture that it's coming from the top somehow. But if you know for sure that it is leaking then I would take pictures and contact the manufacturer. Try hitting up the vendor that sold it to you first. This isn't supposed to happen.

EyePeeA said:

I doubt it is a leak and would venture that it's coming from the top somehow. But if you know for sure that it is leaking then I would take pictures and contact the manufacturer. Try hitting up the vendor that sold it to you first. This isn't supposed to happen.

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Well, you were right to say that it's not coming from the bottom. I took another look and it appears that I have a slow leak from the flo-valve. The way it was situated, everything was pooling up around the base. I took care of that so I'm off and running again.

also, at almost the 24 hour mark I finally have signs of fermentation. In my limited time brewing, I have had good activity with very little lag, so this took me off guard.

Krenshaw, do you aerate with the 02 before or after you pitch? I think I may have made a mistake and pitched first then the O2. It's my first time using it, so this can be a learning experience.

Thanks.