Stupid Airlock

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Wynne-R

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I notice a lot of people saying “Airlock activity is meaningless.” Quit it, right now, you’re scaring the children. Beginners are likely to get confused when you deny them a common sense observation and try to force them into the cult of specific gravity.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a hydrometer and I’m not afraid to use it, though I did go without one for a couple of years. What I’m saying is that observing airlock activity is a useful indication, as well as providing hours of entertainment watching the bubbles.

C6 H12 O6 → 2 CH3 CH2 OH + 2 CO2
glucose yields ethanol plus carbon dioxide.
This is what we’re doing, remember? My point is that the volume of CO2 indicates the speed of the reaction. Would you drive a car watching the odometer but ignoring the speedometer? It’s useful to know how fast you’re going as well as how far.

Here’s how to use this wonderful tool:

No bubbles indicates the reaction is very slow or zero. This could mean the fermentation hasn’t started yet, it’s stuck or done.

The interval between the bubbles is a direct indication of the volume of CO2 being produced. It could tell you you’re speeding up (more bubbles) or slowing down (fewer bubbles). In a special case, if it’s spitting sanitizer, you’re way too hot.

For example, a batch I just pitched two hours ago is showing slight pressure despite it sitting on ice. This tells me there is enough activity to offset the reduced pressure of the cooling air in the headspace.

Someone is probably going to tell me that’s bad practice, but I’ve found the yeast don’t mind being slowly cooled in the lag phase. It’s a big timesaver. The problem is my tap water is 25ºC (77ºF), so to cool below that requires either a bag of ice or a huge air conditioning bill. Plus I get better control with ice-water than cool air.

One more thing; people tell me they prefer the three piece airlock over the classic double bubble because it’s easier to clean. Clean what? Carbonated water? The double bubble is more fun to watch and gives a more precise indication. Slainte
 
airlock activity IS a sign of how fermentation is going.
airlock inactivity is NOT always a sign of how fermentation is going.

no bubbles can mean a lot or different things.
active bubbles can mean only one thing, activity and a properly sealed vessel.

A hydrometer is needed to get detailed information that you don't need during the ferment when you glance at a carboy.
 
I'm with you, Wynne. I watch the airlock to make sure fermentation has started, and then check it periodically for the first 5 days or so. I measure gravity with a hydrometer only once, after 3 weeks, to confirm the FG and ABV.
 
Charles's Law says that airlock activity could indicate a raise in temperature as well. Even if fermentation has completely finished, an increase of temperature would increase the volume (and Pressure, Guy-Lussac's Law) and result in airlock activity as the CO2 in the headspace expands.

Stuff like that is why people say that airlock activity can be, but is not necessarily an indication of fermentation activity.
 
And therefore the thousands of "children" who panic every day because their airlocks don't bubble EVEN WHEN THERE'S CONFIRMEND FERMENTATION through hydrometer readings are hallucination?

And how bout all those lager brewers who also never see, or see little or no airlock activity, because since it is cold, the gas doesn't expand enough to actually cause an airlock to bubble?

And how does an airlock that may or may not bubble, or can bubble slow, or fast or not at all, can start and stop due to changes in barometric pressure, temperature, or whether or not the cat or vacuum cleaner bumped into it, help you to know how or even if a brew is fermenting at any given time? Half the time my airlocks NEVER bubble. And sometimes the lowest gravity beer will have an airlock blowoff whereas I could be brewing a barleywine that barely bubbles?

The rate or lack of or whether or not it bubbles at all, or if it starts and stops has more relation to the environment the fermenter is in, rather than fermentation itself. All it is is a vent, a valve to let our excess gas, especially co2, nothing else. It's not a fermentation gauge whatsoever.

And the only TRULY airtight fermenters out there are if you ferment in a keg or a conical, something that can contain the pressure of fermentation.

Contrary to what you may think, neither a bucket OR a carboy with a bung is airtight. As I stated above you don't want it to be airtight, unless it's a keg or a Stainless conical, unless you like beer/ wine on your ceiling.

I've said it over and over and trolls like to try to get me, or even accuse me of lying (which I don't get why I would lie about something like this) but over the years of LOTS of batches of ALL SIZES and BOTH carboys and buckets, better bottles or glass, carboy caps or bungs, new buckets old buckets, s-types and 3 piece, I get about 50% airlock failure rate (but 100% success rate of fermentation) and it's any number if things, usually simply a non tight seal in the bucket or carboy or grommet....but to me the reason doesn't matter....the point is just trying to glance at an airlock and know what the beer is doing, just is NOT accurate.

My belief is that 1 occurrance is an anamoly, 2 may be a coincidence, BUT 3 or more occurance is an epidemic...and that's the case for folks relying on airlocks all the time, to me if 1 brewer comes on saying his airlock is not bubbling, AND he takes a reading and finds fermentation is going fine, that's an anamoly...

But DAILY on here there are at least 10 threads stating the exact thing...so MAYBE there is something to this idea that airlocks can be faulty. AND if they have the potential to be faulty, then how can we trust them to tell us what's going on?

You can quibble about it all you want, or deal in semantics, but we deal in sheer volume of users on here, and daily we have airlocks not bubbling, and many of them where a gravity reading indicates that fermentation is happening beautifully.

And yes, in an IDEAL situation (like let's say fermenting in a keg with a tight seal and no leak from around the airlock) the airlock SHOULD bubble 100% of the time (providing there's not too much headspace.) If more co2 is created than can be contained in the spavce of the fermenter, THEN an airlock should bubble....because an airlock is a valve.

But MOST of us don't have IDEAL situations, and rarely is a plastic or glass fermenter airtight- it really isn't supposed to be anyway...SO we aren't in the best situation to have IDEAL 100% accuracy of an airlock...

In other words, been there, done that, had this silly argument a million times before...and yet people STILL have fermentations that never see an blip, and folks have airlocks bubbling even after MONTHS of inactivity because of something like a change in temps...


Airlocks are vents, not fermentation gauges. And one of the most superfluous things in brewing, that new brewers seem to put the most stock in.


*shrug*

It your beliefs that scares the noobs, folks have actually dumped their beer because their airlock never bubbled, without ever testing it. Others have racked immediately when an airlock has stopped, and ended up with with stuck fermentation or bottle bombs, because they equate airlock stopping with fermentation ending....

Yeah you can through a lot of pretty math about how an airlock should bubble, yet every day we have a ton of people coming on who say their isn't.

Didn't people also "mathematically" prove a bumble bee is incapable of flight? ;)
 
Wynne-R said:
For example, a batch I just pitched two hours ago is showing slight pressure despite it sitting on ice. This tells me there is enough activity to offset the reduced pressure of the cooling air in the headspace.
Click to expand...

No actually you still have Oxygen trapped in the headspace. If you pitched two hours ago, it's really doubtful your yeast has started converting sugar to co2.

If you [possibly do have some co2 developing that AND the oxygen in there is why you feel "pressure" from pressing the lid.

But most of the time, on day one, even if an airlock bubbles, it's NOT due to co2 being produced and fermentation starting yet, but simple off gassing of whatever is in the headspace (usually just O2.)

You oxygented your wort, and you also snapped your lid or bung down, pushing more oxygen into the headspace, hence the pressure.

Like I said, been there, done that....Seen this "argument" as well. ;)
 
Bubbles are cool, bubbles are fun. If you see rapid bubbles in the first couple of days after you pitch, you do know that fermentation is going well.

We get a dozen posts a day from those that don't see bubbles, but it almost always comes from a lack of an airtight seal. Would you have us tell those newbies to freak out, caulk up all of their seals, and THEN see if they have bubbles?

Better to tell them that a lack of bubbling is no big deal, that the beer is likely doing just fine. Leave it alone a couple of weeks, then pull a gravity reading.

Don't go open up the bucket a half dozen times and create repeated contamination risks - just leave the yeast alone and let it make beer. It knows how to do so. It does not need your help or bubble approval.
 
I agree with Revy 100%. The airlock is a GUIDE, but it certainly isn't anywhere close to a scientific instrument.

I think the point Revy makes throughout all of his posts on this subject, and the point that the OP misses after his rant is that at the BASIC level, all brewers need to know the TRUE FOUNDATIONS - the what, when, why, and how - of fermentation to really know what's going on and be able to properly and consistently manipulate the active variables. The only way to really understand the foundations of fermentation is looking at it scientifically, which always means HYDROMETER READINGS.

I believe once you have the basic concepts of fermentation down, then a hydrometer becomes quite optional, but for a newbie you just can't run around teaching them that an airlock is a replacement for a hydrometer - you are doing them a diservice and not teaching them the basic foundations they really need to be consistently successful!

So is airlock activity meaningless? No, it says alot to someone who knows exactly what's going on in that fermentor, but those who DO NOT know exactly what's going on in the first place need to learn that first!
 
this is one of the most amusing rants i've read on these forums. thanks for the easy lulz.
 
I've had fermentation (enough to produce bottle bombs) with zero airlock activity (I watched for an extended period of time... sorry, no baby monitor or proximity switch), and I've just recently had airlock activity, due to a slight temperature change, after fermentation had finished and was confirmed with a hydrometer.

Airlock activity proves some kind of gas is escaping your fermentation vessel, and that is it. It does not indicate what that gas is (excess O2 in the headspace, CO2 from fermentation, escaping CO2 from slight degassing, etc.), why it is escaping (pressure change due to atmospheric pressure, pressure change due to temperature, CO2 production from fermentation, etc.), nor does it indicate whether or not your beer has begun, or has finished, fermenting.

Everyone preaches experimenting yourself on this board instead of just preaching theory without practice. I've practiced it. My experience with the airlock is that it can be very easily, and has been, inconsistent and has given me false information.


Oh... and cool story bro. Haters gon hate.
 
OK Revvy, you got me on the two hour fermentation. It was a bad example. I didn’t think it through. I use a 4 L starter and see airlock activity after an hour, takes off in 4-6, but I suppose that tiny volume could be air coming out of solution.

I use a universal one hole stopper in a glass carboy and I don’t see how that could leak. I don’t know what you mean about “beer/wine on the ceiling” or “airlock failure rate.” Is the thing going to explode because the water got stuck in the double bubble?

If your fermentor leaks like a sieve, then it would be dumb to conclude that no bubbles means no activity. If you check the OP, my original assertion is that “airlock activity is meaningless” is not true and misleading. A useful indicator is far from being the only tool in the toolbox.

What you seem to be saying is that lack of airlock activity is not a good reason to panic. Good advice. If I thought I had a stuck fermentation I would look for a hydrometer. Still I did plenty of batches without one.
 
Airlock activity can be just from increased pressure in the fermenter.

There is a video that I am looking for that shows an empty carboy with an airlock bubbling away. Pretty simple just change the temp and the pressure will increase.
 
beergolf said:
Airlock activity can be just from increased pressure in the fermenter.

There is a video that I am looking for that shows an empty carboy with an airlock bubbling away. Pretty simple just change the temp and the pressure will increase.
Click to expand...

Heh, I have seen this myself. I have a carboy I had cleaned, and not wanting to have dust in it, I placed an airlock on it (not being used anyway, right?).

Silly thing bubbled for a bit. I can guarantee that there was no fermentation going on.

Airlock activity = gas release. Airlock activity does not equal fermentation guage. Lack of airlock activity absolutely does not mean lack of fermentation (which is what 99% of newbie airlock-related posts are about).
 
No bubbles indicates the reaction is very slow or zero. This could mean the fermentation hasn’t started yet, it’s stuck or done.


Or it means you have a leaky fermenter.
 
Revvy said:
And therefore the thousands of "children" who panic every day because their airlocks don't bubble EVEN WHEN THERE'S CONFIRMEND FERMENTATION through hydrometer readings are hallucination?

And how bout all those lager brewers who also never see, or see little or no airlock activity, because since it is cold, the gas doesn't expand enough to actually cause an airlock to bubble?

And how does an airlock that may or may not bubble, or can bubble slow, or fast or not at all, can start and stop due to changes in barometric pressure, temperature, or whether or not the cat or vacuum cleaner bumped into it, help you to know how or even if a brew is fermenting at any given time? Half the time my airlocks NEVER bubble. And sometimes the lowest gravity beer will have an airlock blowoff whereas I could be brewing a barleywine that barely bubbles?

The rate or lack of or whether or not it bubbles at all, or if it starts and stops has more relation to the environment the fermenter is in, rather than fermentation itself. All it is is a vent, a valve to let our excess gas, especially co2, nothing else. It's not a fermentation gauge whatsoever.

And the only TRULY airtight fermenters out there are if you ferment in a keg or a conical, something that can contain the pressure of fermentation.

Contrary to what you may think, neither a bucket OR a carboy with a bung is airtight. As I stated above you don't want it to be airtight, unless it's a keg or a Stainless conical, unless you like beer/ wine on your ceiling.

I've said it over and over and trolls like to try to get me, or even accuse me of lying (which I don't get why I would lie about something like this) but over the years of LOTS of batches of ALL SIZES and BOTH carboys and buckets, better bottles or glass, carboy caps or bungs, new buckets old buckets, s-types and 3 piece, I get about 50% airlock failure rate (but 100% success rate of fermentation) and it's any number if things, usually simply a non tight seal in the bucket or carboy or grommet....but to me the reason doesn't matter....the point is just trying to glance at an airlock and know what the beer is doing, just is NOT accurate.

My belief is that 1 occurrance is an anamoly, 2 may be a coincidence, BUT 3 or more occurance is an epidemic...and that's the case for folks relying on airlocks all the time, to me if 1 brewer comes on saying his airlock is not bubbling, AND he takes a reading and finds fermentation is going fine, that's an anamoly...

But DAILY on here there are at least 10 threads stating the exact thing...so MAYBE there is something to this idea that airlocks can be faulty. AND if they have the potential to be faulty, then how can we trust them to tell us what's going on?

You can quibble about it all you want, or deal in semantics, but we deal in sheer volume of users on here, and daily we have airlocks not bubbling, and many of them where a gravity reading indicates that fermentation is happening beautifully.

And yes, in an IDEAL situation (like let's say fermenting in a keg with a tight seal and no leak from around the airlock) the airlock SHOULD bubble 100% of the time (providing there's not too much headspace.) If more co2 is created than can be contained in the spavce of the fermenter, THEN an airlock should bubble....because an airlock is a valve.

But MOST of us don't have IDEAL situations, and rarely is a plastic or glass fermenter airtight- it really isn't supposed to be anyway...SO we aren't in the best situation to have IDEAL 100% accuracy of an airlock...

In other words, been there, done that, had this silly argument a million times before...and yet people STILL have fermentations that never see an blip, and folks have airlocks bubbling even after MONTHS of inactivity because of something like a change in temps...


Airlocks are vents, not fermentation gauges. And one of the most superfluous things in brewing, that new brewers seem to put the most stock in.


*shrug*

It your beliefs that scares the noobs, folks have actually dumped their beer because their airlock never bubbled, without ever testing it. Others have racked immediately when an airlock has stopped, and ended up with with stuck fermentation or bottle bombs, because they equate airlock stopping with fermentation ending....

Yeah you can through a lot of pretty math about how an airlock should bubble, yet every day we have a ton of people coming on who say their isn't.

Didn't people also "mathematically" prove a bumble bee is incapable of flight? ;)
Click to expand...

tryhard
 
Hydrometer FTW. Everything else is just guessing.

Guessing is something we do all the time, but if you want to KNOW, there's only one answer.
 
Someone mentioned this video earlier. Another reason why airlocks, are an oh so accurate a gauge of fermentation.



Think it's ready?

;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That's the clearest brew I've ever seen. :D

I do agree that buckets and carboys, with no airlock movement, doesn't automatically equate to nothing going on. One pretty basic tool to see if there's yeast activity in your primary is to get a temperature reading of it. I've been using a thermowell with a probe thermometer down it (one made for taking temperature readings like this, not one you cook with). It's traceable so I know what the high/low temperatures are/were as well as current. Also, with it being in the middle of the primary, I'm more certain that the outside environment is NOT influencing the temperatures to give a false reading.

Buckets can have poor seals around the lids and airlock holes. Carboys can have poor seals around the bung hole. Neither can be trusted 100% (as already mentioned). Even a sanke fermenter can have a seal that's not 100% (but it's easily fixed).

As for gravity readings, I've left the 18th century tool behind (hydrometer) and moved up to the 21st century (refractometer)... :D Tiny sample needed, that's easy to take and you don't need to worry about things rubbing up against it causing false readings. Or the sample degassing, causing a bad reading. :D
 
Revvy said:
Someone mentioned this video earlier. Another reason why airlocks, are an oh so accurate a gauge of fermentation.

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jzT_KTTZ0Q

Think it's ready?

;)
Click to expand...

I usually put my fermentor/er in direct sun light and I am sure to water it twice a day too. I also use miracle grow ( the kind for flowering plants) for yeast nutrient. I have to be careful though... Sometimes the garden gnomes sneak samples
 
beergolf said:
That's the video I was looking for....

It must be fermenting sinc e the airlock is bubbling.:cross:
Click to expand...

According to the Op's premise. Airlocks only bubble because of fermentation...They couldn't possibly be bubbling (especially after 2 hours or otherwise) if it were anything else. ;)

For example, I could pitch my yeast, have it be either dead or at least have a 72 hour lag time, and still have airlock activity in the first 24 hours, or anytime before the yeast actually starts doing it's thing, if there is oxygen present in the headspace (Which it is until it's displaced by the co2), and it either expands due to a sudden temp increase, change of barometric pressure or because my sig other hit it with the vacuum cleaner....or I moved it into a closet. But the yeast could still be in lag, or even dead....Airlocks are vents, not fermentation gauges, and shouldn't be thought of as anything else. That simple.

Beergolf, maybe it's jenkem being fermented in there. :fro:
 
Once again feel free to use this pix. I have them laminated and put on top my fermenters so I do not panic when I do not see bubbles:

Lifta.jpg
 
Dude, I totally agree with you Wynne. I've had my RIS in secondary (a glass carboy) since January when I had a stable FG of 1.024. It's been bubbling every couple minutes for the last ~5 months, so I'm keeping it in there cuz it's obviously still fermenting. Same with my Burton that's been in secondary since March. Can't bottle either until those bubbles stop or I'll get bottle bombs. :drunk:





It will never cease to amaze me what some people deem as logical thought. :rolleyes:
 
Did you guys see the post in my "What are some mistakes you made..." thread where some nervous nelly who uses vasoline to make a tight seal on his buckets, so his airlock bubbles, evidently found out that his wife uses the same vasoline jar to coat her hemorrhoids?:p
 
Revvy said:
Did you guys see the post in my "What are some mistakes you made..." thread where some nervous nelly who uses vasoline to make a tight seal on his buckets, so his airlock bubbles, evidently found out that his wife uses the same vasoline jar to coat her hemorrhoids?:p
Click to expand...

LMAO!!! Good thing I wasn't drinking any homebrew when I read that, or I would have done a 'spit-take' all over my displays... :D

I think that's reason enough to get pint #3 (in under two hours) of my 6.6% English brown ale... I'm feeling damned good right about now, and the room isn't moving too much... :drunk:
 
I think most of us live somewhere in the happy medium of these opinions, which really aren't that far apart if you look past single sentences and read what each person is saying as a whole.
Me personally, I'm still very raw. I'm becoming familiar with one style of ale, brewing it just a little different each time. First batch I took more readings. Last batch I took a first reading, then a final reading a month later. I am comfortable with that because the "bubble effect" was the same from batch to batch to batch, and from this very forum I've learned to trust what is happening and leave it be. Not for nothing, each batch seems to be a little better than the last - I attribute that to focusing on the important details and not sweating the not-so-important details, also known as learning I guess.

I'd have to guess that the little bubble action we get from temp changes or whatever are not going to be significant (at least with my recipes, and at least so far). My point is, thus far for me each time the bubbles started around the second day, and more or less stopped after the 5th day or so, then it is just a test of patience. If there was a change in general bubble activity, I'd be back to measuring like it was batch #1. But for now I'm a casual bubble watcher, and minimal gravity reader. It's all good.

Enjoyed the thread, hope I didn't just kill it...
 
Revvy said:
Did you guys see the post in my "What are some mistakes you made..." thread where some nervous nelly who uses vasoline to make a tight seal on his buckets, so his airlock bubbles, evidently found out that his wife uses the same vasoline jar to coat her hemorrhoids?:p
Click to expand...

That's too f'n funny man!!! Silly brewer, that's what ya get when you revere the airlock as the bubbler of the beer gods!!!
 
I have made 20 batches thus far in my brewing adventure. Haven't taken a single hydrometer reading and Haven't had a single bottle bomb yet. Airlock activity at a rapid pace is a good sign that fermentation is occurring. No one is arguing with you Revvy that a lack of airlock activity means no fermenting or slow bubbling necessarily means fermentation is still occurring. The OP's point is that with proper brewing practices and yeast pitching, rapid bubbling from an airlock is a very great sign that your beer is fermenting.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Hmmm, I'll be sure to take that into consideration next time. Thanks for the heads up. So all I have to do is mash, boil, cool and aerate and everything will be fine? Awesome!!

Edit: wait, now I have to sanitize too? F***, this is getting too hard.
Click to expand...

Hope it turns out well for you.
 
brewmaster12 said:
Hope it turns out well for you.
Click to expand...

If I actually listened to half the cr@p put out there by certain posters on certain threads (of course, not this one or anyone on it), I'm thoroughly convinced that I'd be making some of the worst beer I've ever made.
But please, please feel free to keep giving solid advice, I'm sure some newbie will be very glad there's such knowledgable brewers as yourself there to walk them through it. :mug:
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
If I actually listened to half the cr@p put out there by certain posters on certain threads (of course, not this one or anyone on it), I'm thoroughly convinced that I'd be making some of the worst beer I've ever made.
But please, please feel free to keep giving solid advice, I'm sure some newbie will be very glad there's such knowledgable brewers as yourself there to walk them through it. :mug:
Click to expand...

And such humble brewers as yourself for them to turn to advice from.
 

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