Fermentation

I brewed 2 batches yesyerday. It was 91 degrees and I had a hard time getting the wort below 80f. Finally I pitched and carried the product down in the basement. Within 1 hour the air locks were buzzing. 24 hours later, no bubbles. What should I do?

Relax, lack of bubbles is OK. Bucket may not be air tight, my bucket has never had a bubble but plenty of yummy beer has beef made. What is the temp of wort now? If it is too warm it may have some off flavors.

Give it a couple of days. The airlock activity you saw could be fermentation although only an hour after pitching I would doubt it. What type of yeast did you pitch, dry, starter, slurry..?

Also airlock bubbles could be caused from air coming out of solution as the temp of your wort fell, or expansion if your wort warmed.

You yeast should be in the lag phase right now, building up numbers. Although that should be ending by 24 hours. Still, I would not get too excited until day three at the least.

I did almost the same thing a week ago and was equally freaking out about it. If it's an opaque bucket, you can use a flashlight to shine on the lid and the sides to see what's going on inside.

Happy to report that my airlock is quiet but you can clearly see a krausen ring (and now that fermentation is pretty much settled) all the yeast has started to drop out to the bottom and the beer is clearing nicely.

It also depends on when you checked on it after you pitched.

I used Safale US-05 and it seemed to peak at about 12 hours after pitch. I didn't look at it again until almost 24 hours after pitch so I missed all the crazy airlock activity.

JoeTrott said:

What should I do?

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That beer's trash. Go ahead and bottle it up next week and send it to me for proper disposal. Since this is your first time I'll take care of it for free.

In the future, its probably best to hold off on pitching the yeast until its below 70F. During the summer, its impossible for me to chill my wort below 80 or so in any reasonable amount of time. Now I just get it below 100 then get it into the fermentor and seal it up. Next morning, I aerate and pitch the yeast. This will prevent nasty fusel off flavors

Forget about it for the next 3 weeks keep it around 64* and then bottle or better wait 4 weeks.

You guys are all great thanks

I used slurry starter 150ml AND 1 packet of safe ale 05
when I go in the basement there is a wonderful aroma and the basement stays at about 65 degrees sans temperature control because I am in San Francisco. I just happened to pick a record heat wave in the city as my brew day so I was kind of worried. I looked for the ring and it IS forming around the bucket at about the 5 gallon mark so I think its going but no bubbles. Thanks again

Not much you can do this time but for the next brew, don't pitch the yeast when the wort is too warm. It won't hurt to wait 12 or even 24 hours with the wort in your basement to let the temperature cool to pitching temp.