no visible fermentation?

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eatria

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I'm brewing my 2nd batch of beer (while not having tasted the first one yet) and haven't seen much signs of fermentation.

here's the deal

Chilled wort in a bucket of cold water to 75*

Pitched yeast and swirled the carboy

Upon swirling, noted that the temperature dropped rapidly to about 62 degrees (evidently, the temp wasn't evenly distributed and i must have siphoned from the top-warm liq rises)

Let the carboy sit with a towel around it for 2 days.
after day one- nothing

after day two- slight foam accumulation at very top - temperature still down in high 60's.

used a small space heater to raise the temperature to 75* and swirled the carboy again, to shake up any settled yeast.

now i'm waiting.

did i do anything wrong? shoudl i have done anything differently?
 
Did you aerate before pitching the yeast? i.e. shake the sh## out of your wort? If not you might not get great attenuation but should still get some fermentation and probably won't start for a while, up to 3 days before fermentation shows signs of starting.
 
I have used munton's dry ale yeast on the last couple of generic type of beer's I have made and if you ever have problems with fermentation, I would suggest this stuff. It's fermented out completely in 2-3 days every time with bubbles within the hour after pitching. Some strong little suckers.
 
Don't worry about it. My first batch showed NO visible signs of fermentation in the airlock. The bucket was not airtight. It fermented fine. As long as you see some krausen on top, it should be fine.
 
Hey guys, I have a question regarding the airlock on a Cooper's home brewing kit. I put the wort in the fermenter about 18 hours ago and put the lid with airlock on the fermenter. I noticed that there was foam (not sure what the correct term for this is) forming on the top of the wort and there was some sediment on the bottom.

Despite this, there was no activity in the airlock. I took out the airlock, sealed the hole in the lid and then squeezed the sides of the plastic fermenter. I heard gas escaping from the sides of the lid. I called Cooper's and they said this is normal and that the airlock isn't really necessary.

Is it true that it's ok if the fermenter isn't sealed? It just seems strange that so many people use airlocks if they aren't necessary.
 
Airlocks bubble or they don't it doesn't mean anything is wrong.

Half my beers NEVER have a bubbling airlock, but I've never had a fermentation not happen before.

Airlock bubbling and fermentation are not the same thing. You have to separate that from your mindset. Airlock bubbling can be a sign of fermentation, but not a good one, because the airlock will often blip or not blip for various other reasons...

Like yours proved, and cooper's confirmed.

So it is a tenuous connection at best.

If your airlock was bubbling and stopped---It doesn't mean fermentation has stopped.

If you airlock isn't bubbling, it doesn't mean your fermentation hasn't started....

If your airlock starts bubbling, it really doesn't matter.

If your airlock NEVER bubbles, it doesn't mean anything is wrong or right.

Your airlock is not a fermentation gauge, it is a VALVE to release excess co2. If it bubbles it is because it needs to, if it doesn't, it just means it doesn't need too...

Often an airlock will bubble if the fermenter has been disturbed in some way, like a change in temperature, change in atmospheric pressure, the cat brushing against it, opening it up to take a hydro reading, any number of things. The co2 has sat in stasis for a period of time, then it was disturbed so it is not longer at equilibrium with everything else now. And therefore it is blipping in your airlock...

Or you could indeed have fermentation happening, since maybe your fermentation was laggy and a change in temp restarted fermentation.

Airlock bubbling only tells you that co2 is coming out of the airlock, it is not telling you why. And there's various reasons. That's why it's not a good idea to equate airlock bubbling with fermentation...It could be because it is fermenting, or it could not be because of fermentation...so it's not a trustworthy tool.

And airlocks sometimes bubble or they don't. And airlock is a valve, a vent to release excess co2...NOT a fermentation gauge. It's important to make that distinction, or you'll be panicking everytime a an airlock doesn't bubble, or stops bubbling.

Fermentation is not always "dynamic," just because you don't SEE anything happening, doesn't mean that any-thing's wrong,, and also doesn't mean that the yeast are still not working diligently away, doing what they've been doing for over 4,000 years.

That's why you need to take a gravity reading to know how your fermentation is going, NOT go by airlocks, or size of krausen, or a calendar, the horoscope or the phases of the moon (those things in my mind are equally accurate). :rolleyes:

The most important tool you can use is a hydrometer. It's the only way you will truly know when your beer is ready...airlock bubbles and other things are faulty.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

NO fermenters are airtight, if they were then probably half our beers would end up on the ceiling. Airlocks are vents or valves, to release EXCESS co2. Many folks just cover their fermenter buckets with a piece of plexiglass letting the co2 push out between where the plexiglass and the bucket meet. Others cover their carboy mouth with tinfoil. Totally ignoring the need for either an airlock OR a bucket cover.

An airlock is a vent, a valve to release EXCESS co2, it prevents the fermenter from being airtight, and the beer from exploding all over the place.

A lot of folks, especially folks with arthritis, barely even put the lid on tight at all, they just lay it on top. again, if co2 is getting out, NOTHING nasty can get in. And that really is all that matters.

There's even a new gasket out now that renders an airlock totally unnecessary.

Your beer is cushioned by a layer of co2. And if it's getting out elsewhere nothing's getting in. The bad stuff are not ninja acrobats it doesn't take much to prevent them from getting to our beer.

And don't forget https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/fermentation-can-take-24-72-hrs-show-visible-signs-43635/, and by visible signs we don't necessarily mean a bubbling airlock.
It IS a sticky at the top of the beginners forum for a reason, afterall. ;)
 
I guess my question is why is an airlock even necessay if we can simply allow the CO2 to escape where the lid meets the fermenter?
 
I guess my question is why is an airlock even necessay if we can simply allow the CO2 to escape where the lid meets the fermenter?

They aren't. A lot of breweries do open air fermenting but they also have rooms devoted to this task. There is nothing wrong with leaving carboy unplugged or a bucket without a lid. If it's in a good environment give it a try, but if you have kids or animals you may want to rethink the idea.

I've been experimenting with open fermenting.
 
And it's not open fermentation per se, if you put a piece of plexiglass over your bucket instead of a lid and an airlock, the gas is escaping out of the gap. Like I said, bad stuff are not ninja acrobats, they really can't get in, especially if the positive pressure of fermentation is pushing out the co2.
 
I guess my question is why is an airlock even necessary if we can simply allow the CO2 to escape where the lid meets the fermenter?

While some buckets don't make an air tight seal, many buckets and carboys or better bottles do. The air lock provides a simple valve to let CO2 escape and pressure equalize between the headspace in the fermentor and the ambient environment, avoiding blowing out the bung or lid and preventing air born baddies from having an easy path(ie: straight down) into the fermentor.

But some people just use a solid bucket lid laidd on loosely, or a starsan treated piece of aluminum foil formed over the mouth of the fermentor
 
I guess my question is why is an airlock even necessay if we can simply allow the CO2 to escape where the lid meets the fermenter?

I make sure my primaries are airtight, but as everyone else has said, it's not necessary. It just makes me feel better, especially since I almost always do a minimum 4-week primary only. And I dig hearing the soothing sound of the airlock bubbling away.

When I used a secondary, I often just threw a towel over the top of the primary. Never a problem.
 
I make sure my primaries are airtight, but as everyone else has said, it's not necessary. It just makes me feel better, especially since I almost always do a minimum 4-week primary only. And I dig hearing the soothing sound of the airlock bubbling away.

When I used a secondary, I often just threw a towel over the top of the primary. Never a problem.

What is this primary/secondary business? I know about secondary fermentation, but are you talking about something different?
 
What is this primary/secondary business? I know about secondary fermentation, but are you talking about something different?

I was referring to the practice of using 2 vessels for fermentation, one for the primary ferment, then racking into another vessel. Lots of people just use one vessel period, and rack only to package the finished beer.

There is a ton of stuff on this board about the advantages and disadvantages of each practice.
 
I was referring to the practice of using 2 vessels for fermentation, one for the primary ferment, then racking into another vessel. Lots of people just use one vessel period, and rack only to package the finished beer.

There is a ton of stuff on this board about the advantages and disadvantages of each practice.

I have a stupid question. What exactly is racking? I've looked around a bit, but I haven't found anything.
 
I have a stupid question. What exactly is racking? I've looked around a bit, but I haven't found anything.

Racking is siphoning the beer (or wine, or whatever) off of the sediment at the bottom of whatever vessel it is in and into another vessel.

Do you have a basic brewing book? They tend to have a glossary that can be really helpful at first.
 
I have a stupid question. What exactly is racking? I've looked around a bit, but I haven't found anything.

Racking is the act of transferring beer/wine/mead/etc. from one vessel to another, such as a bright tank or bottling bucket.

ps I was taught the only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask :mug:
 
I began my first adventure in home brewing last night with Brewer's Best amber ale. I truly appreciate this thread and this forum. It's been approximately 12 hours and no bubbles in my air lock either. If it weren't for this thread, I would be freaking out too; that I did something wrong, or my beer was not fermenting.

There were several things that I did last night that I considered "mistakes." But after reading this forum (until midnight!), I now concider them items that I will do differently instead.

The point of this reply is that since reading the numerous threads on this forum, I have more confidence about my first home brew being successful.

Thank you to all the experienced home brewing hobbiests for tearing yourselves away from your hydrometers, brew pots, and grain mills to answer the same question over and over again. If the questions weren't asked, I would not have learned.
 
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