very dumb airlock mistake what do you think?

So I guess I relaxed and had a little too much homebrew because I forgot to put the little plastic cover that goes over the post on inside the airlock.

Long story short, I brewed up and ipa and kept an eye on it. So day 3 comes and I still see no bubbles in the airlock. I tried moving it to warmer temp, I mixed around the fermenter thinlking maybe it was stuck, and finally I repitched hesitantly more yeast with still no bubbles after another 24 hours. So dumb me goes over to investigate and I noticed the reason why there was no bubbling........ no cap for the air to raise and make visible fermentation!

So what do we think? Did the additional yeast make for a very bad move? Did not having the plastic cone like cap over the postmake a difference?

Help because I was really looking forward to my hoppy brew!

It's probably just fine. When the beer is fermenting, there is enough co2 coming out that nothing else can get it. Don't worry about it, and let it finish up. It shouldn't taste yeasty- any unneeded yeast cells will just drop out to the bottom eventually.

Everything is fine....more yeast is better than not enough. Just because you don't see the airlock moving doesn't mean it isn't fermenting. Now start brewing another batch so you can think about something else.

Just remember, you should never rely on the bubbling or lack of on a cheap chinese plastic airlock as a "fermentation Gauge," it's not...It's an airlock, nothing more, a VALVE to release excess CO2, to keep from blowing the lid off the fermentor...If it's not bubbling that just means that there's not enough CO2 to climb out of the airlock, or the CO2 is just forming a nice cushion on top of the beer like it's supposed to, or the airlock is askew, or it is leaking out the cheap rubber grommet, or you have a leak in the bucket seal...all those are fine...if CO2 is getting out then nothing's getting in....

Over half of my beers have had no airlock activity...

The only gauge of fermentaion is your hydrometer. And it's too soon to worry about it. Wait til 10 days after pitching if you want to bother checking then...

All is fine...

buckeyebrewer said:

Everything is fine....more yeast is better than not enough. Just because you don't see the airlock moving doesn't mean it isn't fermenting. Now start brewing another batch so you can think about something else.

Click to expand...

+1 on that! You're fine!

GO BUCKEYES!!!! I'm going to the game tomorrow!! Love the PBR in the Rice Krispy Kookie!!!

Oh and next time, before you do something (kinda unnecessary) like repitch based on the airlock (which you just proved is faulty) read this and take the advice given in there....

I wrote a blog about that here...

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Revvy/Think_evaluation_before_action/

Thanks for all the advice , it smells good so far ill let ya know in a few weeks how everything worked out!

Revvy said:

Oh and next time, before you do something (kinda unnecessary) like repitch based on the airlock (which you just proved is faulty) read this and take the advice given in there....

I wrote a blog about that here...

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Revvy/Think_evaluation_before_action/

Click to expand...

Just read the blog... that was great!

The brew is fine, i have double pitched a few brews and they are ok.
You may want to add finings at around day 10 as that clumps to the yeast and causes it to drop out like hippies at Nimbin, this may help clear the brew and also you will have less yeast in the bottle.