Always trust your hydrometer.

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Chaostar

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Brewed up a batch of wit and pitched some Danstar.

24 hours later and nothing. No krausen, no airlock activity. Read a bunch of bad reviews about Munich and thought mine was bad. Waited a few days and still nothing. Thought about pitching some more, possibly something else and then remembered what experienced brewers always say....

"USE EVIDENCE BEFORE ACTION!"

took a gravity reading after 4 days and i had gone from 1.050 to 1.012. Damn, that's pretty much my target. There was never any krausen nor activity in the airlock. Checked my hydrometer in water and it's good.

So, happy brewing and I can join the club of always trusting objective findings over subjective. Thank's to all of you and your info on here.

Cheers and happy brewing! :mug:
 
That's pretty weird, maybe you had a leak around the seal of your carboy/bucket? I've never heard of yeast being able to work without farting out some co2 lol.

Anyway glad it turned out good!
 
DubbinFive1Eight said:
That's pretty weird, maybe you had a leak around the seal of your carboy/bucket? I've never heard of yeast being able to work without farting out some co2 lol.

Anyway glad it turned out good!
Click to expand...

I know, right.....

It's in a bucket but im gonna rack it soon. Hopefully it comes out alright. I guess I'll know in a month or so.

The airlock isn't really what got to me, it was the lack of any krausen :confused:
 
Yeah the lack of krausen would have had me worried too. Glad you did the right thing before over pitching!

I've had the lack of activity worries too, but I just left it for the 2-3 weeks anyway and when I opened it up and sampled it was right on target. I let sit for another day just to make sure, and when it read out the same I bottled.
 
Betterbottle for the win!! I have 2 primary buckets and neither of them seal well enough to produce airlock activity. Going on the philosophy that if there's a way out, there's a way in, I have banned them both from contact with my beer. One is living out its days as a sanitizer bucket. The other catches grain from my mill on brewday.
 
I don't think you have to be to worried about an unsealed fermentor over 4 days of primary fermentation. An awful lot of good beer is still made via open fermentation. As long as you move it to a sealed environment for conditioning/aging, I think you would be ok. Did you use any anti-foaming agents in your kettle? If you did, that could play some role in the lack of krausen.
 
winvarin said:
Betterbottle for the win!! I have 2 primary buckets and neither of them seal well enough to produce airlock activity. Going on the philosophy that if there's a way out, there's a way in, I have banned them both from contact with my beer. One is living out its days as a sanitizer bucket. The other catches grain from my mill on brewday.
Click to expand...

Good call. I have a Trappist Tripel in a bucket right now and I think that will be the last time I use them.

Do they make a 6-6.5 gallon Betterbottle? I think they only make 5 gallon ones :confused:
 
WolvinMaine said:
I don't think you have to be to worried about an unsealed fermentor over 4 days of primary fermentation. An awful lot of good beer is still made via open fermentation. As long as you move it to a sealed environment for conditioning/aging, I think you would be ok. Did you use any anti-foaming agents in your kettle? If you did, that could play some role in the lack of krausen.
Click to expand...

I racked it last night. I didn't use anything new.....same cleaning/sterilization process and equipment as always. I'm not too worried about it. Definintely going to brew this recipe again though.... with a different yeast.
 
DubbinFive1Eight said:
That's pretty weird, maybe you had a leak around the seal of your carboy/bucket? I've never heard of yeast being able to work without farting out some co2 lol.

Anyway glad it turned out good!
Click to expand...

That's not weird at all that is 99.5% of the "Is my yeast dead because I see no signs of "activity" threads on here are about. And 99% of THOSE threads, when the OP actually takes a hydro reading, they get the exact same results as he did.....That's why we say over and over and over that an airlock is NOT an accurate indication of fermentation activity.

Airlocks bubble or don't, stop or don't for too many reasons for it to be a good guide.

Same with krausen even that isn't all that reliable. he amount of krausen can vary for whatever reason, it can come quick and depart quickly or it can linger long after fermentation is complete, and it all be normal.

For example, I had a wit beer that I pitched bottle harvested Hoegaarden yeast on Dec. 26th, that STILL had a 2" krausen on it three weeks later. I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010. So the beer was done, but the krausen still lingered. I finally gently swirled the beer to knock it down, and let it settle for another week before I bottled it. I'm not normally a fan of knocking them down, and usually let it do it naturally.

But some yeasts are low flocculating, and may have a difficult time. I figured since mine was bottle harvested, and I had pitched the starter at high krausen, maybe it was "genetically mutated" with the flocculation "gene" off or something. So I gently swirled it and let it fall.

I brewed another batch with another mason jars worth of that yeast several months later and had the same thing happen.

Beligan wits are notoriously long krausening.

So it goes back to the fact that the only reliable guide to how your fermentation is going is........;)
 
Revvy said:
That's not weird at all that is 99.5% of the "Is my yeast dead because I see no signs of "activity" threads on here are about. And 99% of THOSE threads, when the OP actually takes a hydro reading, they get the exact same results as he did.....That's why we say over and over and over that an airlock is NOT an accurate indication of fermentation activity.

Airlocks bubble or don't, stop or don't for too many reasons for it to be a good guide.

Same with krausen even that isn't all that reliable. he amount of krausen can vary for whatever reason, it can come quick and depart quickly or it can linger long after fermentation is complete, and it all be normal.

For example, I had a wit beer that I pitched bottle harvested Hoegaarden yeast on Dec. 26th, that STILL had a 2" krausen on it three weeks later. I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010. So the beer was done, but the krausen still lingered. I finally gently swirled the beer to knock it down, and let it settle for another week before I bottled it. I'm not normally a fan of knocking them down, and usually let it do it naturally.

But some yeasts are low flocculating, and may have a difficult time. I figured since mine was bottle harvested, and I had pitched the starter at high krausen, maybe it was "genetically mutated" with the flocculation "gene" off or something. So I gently swirled it and let it fall.

I brewed another batch with another mason jars worth of that yeast several months later and had the same thing happen.

Beligan wits are notoriously long krausening.

So it goes back to the fact that the only reliable guide to how your fermentation is going is........;)
Click to expand...

lol I think you misunderstood me my friend, I had no intention of saying fermentation couldn't have taken place because there was no airlock activity. I'm very aware that hydrometer readings are the only direct, concise method to determine whether a batch of wort has been fermenting or not. I used the word ''weird'' as in, something isn't working the way it should... Such as the seal on the fermenter :drunk:

I'm interested in the harvesting of that Hoegaarden yeast, but that would be getting :off:
 
DubbinFive1Eight said:
I used the word ''weird'' as in, something isn't working the way it should... Such as the seal on the fermenter.
Click to expand...

Many bucket lids sold by homebrew supply shops don't have a gasket on the bucket lid where it contacts the bucket rim. In my experience, these lids hardly ever seal. I use a length of sanitized nylon cord to fill the gap. It would probably be safer sanitation-wise to use some kind of spray foam, but I haven't gotten to it yet.
 

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