Strange Yeast Activity!

It's been 36 hours since I started fermenting, and my yeast hasn't shown any signs of activity.

There is something strange happening, though, instead of expelling CO2 out of the airlock like normal, it appears to be trying to suck out all the air from my airlock into the fermenting carboy. If you can picture this, I use a 3-piece airlock, and half the water has been sucked up into the inner piece.

Does this mean I have a bacterial infection?

More information, I used Bavarian Ale liquid yeast, and my original hydrometer reading was 1.051

It sounds like you pitched a bit warmer then the room temperature, and as it's cooled it's causing a vacuum, sucking back some liquid from the airlock. That happens during weather changes, too, even barometric changes. Temperature change is usually the biggest culprit, though.

yooperbrew said:

it sounds like you pitched a bit warmer then the room temperature, and as it's cooled it's causing a vacuum, sucking back some liquid from the airlock. That happens during weather changes, too, even barometric changes. Temperature change is usually the biggest culprit, though.

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+1 .

Some people use Starsan or vodka in the air lock in case it gets sucked into the wort it will not cause infection or off flavor. I usually use half water and half vodka. Leaves more vodka for drinking : )

RDWHAH. and keep the airlock filled

It's happened to me a few times.. no worries. One time I was driving a filled carboy up my driveway (which is up hill) and it violently sucked back into the carboy (a pressure thing? I dunno).

Same thing happened to me a few months ago. I guess I wasn't paying attention during my high school science classes. The carboy ended up sucking about half a gallon of sanitizer before I realized what was going on. Should have taken out the blowoff tube before chilling it down to get it cleared up. In the ended, I called it Star San Ale and it was pretty good. I don't go around bragging about it though!