Airlock no longer Bubbling! Pitch New Yeast?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

luckylindy345

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
82
Reaction score
0
Hi everyone, I've been snooping around the forum for awhile now and have already learned a lot from you all so I can tell this is an awesome forum!

Anyway, I'm a new brewer (made first batch of True Brew IPA on Tuesday) and think I might have a fermentation problem. My first mistake was pitching the yeast when the wort was still hovering around 87F. Also, I don't think I aerated the wort well enough (the directions with my kit didn't mention that but I should have known b/c I read most of "How to Brew" by Palmer). I was elated when I saw that my airlock was bubbling about 10 hours into fermentation. However, about 30 hours into fermentation the airlock slowed bubbling dramatically and now it has stopped. In the last chapter of John Palmer's book, he suggests pitching new yeast when this happens. However, I have read on this forum that pitching more yeast can cause serious off-flavors and over-carbonation if the old yeast wasn't, in fact, dead. Should I pop off the top of my fermentation bucket and look for krausen? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
 
Take a gravity reading and see if you are near the FG that your recipe calls for. More then likely everything is fine. Sometimes yeast works really quickly sometime more slowly.
 
I've had beers ferment out overnight, and since you pitched so warm, I'm betting that's what happened to you. As the others said, if you're really concerned, take an SG reading. Otherwise, just wait a couple of weeks.
 
Revvy, thanks for the link! That makes me feel a lot better. As for the gravity reading, I'll have to go to a hbs to get a new hydrometer because the one I got with my kit arrived shattered and I don't want to wait for the company to ship another one! Even if the yeast did their job already and my gravity is in the right range, I should wait a couple weeks before I bottle, right?
 
Whether you wait or not, you should still have the company send you a new one. A second could come in handy, as it appears from the members here that they break very easily.
 
Revvy, thanks for the link! That makes me feel a lot better. As for the gravity reading, I'll have to go to a hbs to get a new hydrometer because the one I got with my kit arrived shattered and I don't want to wait for the company to ship another one! Even if the yeast did their job already and my gravity is in the right range, I should wait a couple weeks before I bottle, right?

I leave all mine in the primary for 1 month then bottle for 3-4 weeks.
 
Alright, sounds good. I'll go to the store today, pick up a hydrometer and get a gravity reading tonight. Thanks for the quick replies! I'll post again if my gravity is way off or something.
 
First time brewer. I have the almost identical situation as luckylindy345 (pitched yeast into warm wort), except i didn't catch the overflow and woke up this morning to see my airlock exploded off and crusted (like sugar) bevarage around the airlock.

Checked OG ( great link by the way, Revvy) and it was 1025...it should be at 1064.

Is my brew dead??? Can it be salvaged???
 
First time brewer. I have the almost identical situation as luckylindy345 (pitched yeast into warm wort), except i didn't catch the overflow and woke up this morning to see my airlock exploded off and crusted (like sugar) bevarage around the airlock.

Checked OG ( great link by the way, Revvy) and it was 1025...it should be at 1064.

Is my brew dead??? Can it be salvaged???

Your beer's fine, you just had an active fermentaion, with blowoff, happens all the time.. If it's still gunky and producing blowoff, then consider rigging up a blowoff tube after you clean and re sanitize the airlock...

do this...

Airlockbo2.jpg


Ailockbo1.jpg


Of ot's done blowing krauzen, then clean and re-sanitize the airlock and put it back in....

Two more things...

What is krauzen and what is a 'rhino fart'???

Use the search function to look those words up...
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I did rig up the device you had pictured, and I did see a bubble come up so I assume fermentation is happening again. I am afraid that too much oxygen got into the batch before I could get things under control again.

Either way, I am going to let it go for the two weeks in the primary and see what happens...

Thanks!
 
Back
Top