Damn Airlocks ! But good post for Paranoid Noobs...

I see alot of posts here regarding fermentation. No airlock bubbling paranoia, should I repitch it's not bubbling, is my beer ready, it stopped bubbling, etc...

I've done 2 batches in the past month, never saw the first batch bubble, thought I just missed it (maybe it was working while I was sleeping). So, I rack it a month later, saw the Krausen ring, all good !!

Did the 2nd batch this past Sunday, 2 or 3 days pass, no airlock activity? Yet when I open the cabinet where the bucket sits I smell booze!!! Now I'm getting suspicious.

Guess what, I shake on the airlock, it's a little loose (like my old girlfriends Vag)...The air still had been seeping out of the buckets airlock hole!! It was just time for me to change the airlocks washer!!!! No harm, no foul.

Personally, I thought those little washers lasted forever, but they do get stretched out (like my old girlfriends vag)......

More commonly, at least for me, the bucket lids wear out and allow gas to escape. I have one bucket that never bubbles out of the airlock.

I don't have any bucket that really bubbles out of the airlock anymore

I never have that problem with a carboy, I'm doing a small 3 gallon AG this weekend, The carboy never lets me down, I just love to see those bubbles for some reason, Like a child, I'll sit there and watch it......... lol

Oh, I'm the same way with a carboy. Most of the time I'm just lazy and buckets are easier to deal with. Do you find yourself smelling the airlock vapor? Mmmmm I love that. Beer goodness in the nose during fermentation.

Brewnoob1 said:

Oh, I'm the same way with a carboy. Most of the time I'm just lazy and buckets are easier to deal with. Do you find yourself smelling the airlock vapor? Mmmmm I love that. Beer goodness in the nose during fermentation.

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Absolutely, I had my nose right at the airlock last night, even pushed on the lid to get more vapor up my nose, It's like a good fart that only the person who made it can enjoy !!!!

It can happen with carboys, it can happen with buckets, it can happen for various reasons, and even if it happens to only ONE person, it shows how un-reliable an airlock is as any type of "fermentation gauge." That's why we tell people to ignore what a cheap piece of plastic does or doesn't do....

I said it for years, and got trolled for it. Back when I even bothered to check anymore half the time I never saw a bubble, but I ALWAYS had fermentation. Now I never bother to look at my fermenters, I pitch my yeast and come back a month later. Unless I'm adding something. Or racking the beer.

And airlock is a vent, and if the co2 vents from elsewhere, that's fine too.

It's not like it was in the 70's, modern yeast rarely ever doesn't work....It's never failed me.

I miss watching the bubbles - but inside my fermentation temperature control system, all is hidden. Alas...better beer, less visual...

I figure all this airlock obsession, and the silly "counting bubbles" thing came from back in the day when airlock were heavy and made of glass and probably made a better seal when they were used (though a lot of old school brewers just put a cover on their fermenters like a pie plate on a crock, and never used buckets or carboys) and they made a better seal and therefore might have actually bubbled more often than light, cheap plastic ones.

I betcha these ones bubbled all the time.





But regardless, bubbling never corresponds to any tangible gravity drop or anything that can be quantified, it's not like "x bubbles/minute = Y drop in gravity points." That's why a lot of old school brewers who bottled when their airlocks stopped got so many bottle bombs back in the day. The biggest complaint I've heard from oldshool brewers was bottle bombs....gee maybe it was because the counted bubbles, and didn't use a hydromter? It's not like hydrometers weren't around or anything, they've only been in use since the 4th century.

Revvy said:

It's not like hydrometers weren't around or anything, they've only been in use since the 4th century.

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Huh? Everything I've read says that hydrometers weren't used in brewing until the 18th century - more than a millennium after the date you're claming.

Who was using hydrometers 1,000 years before London brewers discovered them?

kombat said:

Huh? Everything I've read says that hydrometers weren't used in brewing until the 18th century - more than a millennium after the date you're claming.

Who was using hydrometers 1,000 years before London brewers discovered them?

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History:

An early description of a hydrometer appears in a letter from Synesius of Cyrene to the Greek scholar Hypatia of Alexandria. In Synesius' fifteenth letter, he requests Hypatia to make a hydrometer for him. Hypatia is given credit for inventing the hydrometer (or hydroscope) sometime in the late 4th century or early 5th century.[1]

OK, but they weren't used in brewing until the 1700's, in London, right? So we're both right?

Hell, one of my buckets (a Brewers Best IIRC) doesn't even have an o-ring. I was amazed I saw any airlock activity on my first few batches using that one. I think it is mostly a lack of patience - after all the time spent planning and brewing it is hard for some people to just sit back and wait for the yeast to do its job

The last batch I made, the fermentation bucket was bubbling out from under the lid! 5gal batch in a 6.5gal bucket, even had a blow off tube installed (which was being well utilized).

On a plus side, I now know the beer is a very nice bright orange color.

I have a couple lids that seal and a couple that don't. I threw this video up to show/prove that both were fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWU91Rvjw4A&feature=youtu.be

VampireSix said:

The last batch I made, the fermentation bucket was bubbling out from under the lid! 5gal batch in a 6.5gal bucket, even had a blow off tube installed (which was being well utilized).

On a plus side, I now know the beer is a very nice bright orange color.

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My last RIS did the same thing. I kept having to babysit it all night and wipe up the wort coming out from under the lid, so I wouldn't end up with a puddle in my ferm chamber. It was also blowing out the blow off tube.