The night before last (wednesday), my friend and I brewed two batches.
Mine was half-kit, a cooper draught amended with peat-smoked cracked grain and 3 lbs munton's wheat extract, pitched with safbrew t-58. The t-58 was a year out of date, so I proofed it first with DME and it developed excellent cream. Cooled wort to 73 and pitched, OG: 1.052. Thursday morning, fermentation was progressing in an excellent way, and I have great hopes for it, and it smells most awesome.
Now, the other ... He warmed up some tap water (not boiled), dumped in a cooper IPA kit, dumped in an unmeasured amount (about half of a bag labeled 500g ) of DME, and some unmarked pelleted hops, waited till the temp got to 80 and pitched the dry cooper standard yeast on top. No OG measurement.
The next day, he had no activity. Pushing on the lid appeared to confirm seal, so we assumed dead yeast. We proofed yeast from another cooper IPA kit and when it was nice and active, popped the lid. What appeared to be happening was the yeast was sitting on top of some hop pellet scum and had not inoculated. He pulls aside the floating hop mat and pours in the proofed yeast, but before I note that I see lots of activity going on once he moved the mat aside. It was doing it's job just fine.
Arrrgh. So, now we've double-yeasted this batch. It turns out there is some slow leak in the lid - push down, you get airlock activity, hold it and the airlock slowly closes again. Must be a slightly warped lid or something.
So, now we have a primary that's status completely unknown. Is the double-yeasting going to speed fermentation and make the batch taste wierd? Is the bad seal going to let bad bugs in? Who knows, but I thought I'd ask you all for suggestions as to a next step. I plan on picking up a new primary tonight, will sanitizing and transferring to it be sensible at this point? Should he just toss it and start over, with proper sanitization and proofing?
Thanks for any help you can give.
Mine was half-kit, a cooper draught amended with peat-smoked cracked grain and 3 lbs munton's wheat extract, pitched with safbrew t-58. The t-58 was a year out of date, so I proofed it first with DME and it developed excellent cream. Cooled wort to 73 and pitched, OG: 1.052. Thursday morning, fermentation was progressing in an excellent way, and I have great hopes for it, and it smells most awesome.
Now, the other ... He warmed up some tap water (not boiled), dumped in a cooper IPA kit, dumped in an unmeasured amount (about half of a bag labeled 500g ) of DME, and some unmarked pelleted hops, waited till the temp got to 80 and pitched the dry cooper standard yeast on top. No OG measurement.
The next day, he had no activity. Pushing on the lid appeared to confirm seal, so we assumed dead yeast. We proofed yeast from another cooper IPA kit and when it was nice and active, popped the lid. What appeared to be happening was the yeast was sitting on top of some hop pellet scum and had not inoculated. He pulls aside the floating hop mat and pours in the proofed yeast, but before I note that I see lots of activity going on once he moved the mat aside. It was doing it's job just fine.
Arrrgh. So, now we've double-yeasted this batch. It turns out there is some slow leak in the lid - push down, you get airlock activity, hold it and the airlock slowly closes again. Must be a slightly warped lid or something.
So, now we have a primary that's status completely unknown. Is the double-yeasting going to speed fermentation and make the batch taste wierd? Is the bad seal going to let bad bugs in? Who knows, but I thought I'd ask you all for suggestions as to a next step. I plan on picking up a new primary tonight, will sanitizing and transferring to it be sensible at this point? Should he just toss it and start over, with proper sanitization and proofing?
Thanks for any help you can give.