feeble fermentation

[Philsc]

When you're a new brewer, RDWHAHB does not apply until the pipeline kicks in which is partly why newbies are so paranoid.

Hence this post.

Trying to get a pipeline going I brewed twice in 3 days. Once on Wednesday then I tried to perfect the recipe on Friday.

Wednesday's brew was 1048 should've been closer to 1038. So, in repeating the recipe on Friday I was careful to get the correct gravity by adding water.

They both started bubbling within 10 hours - high pitching rate - one sachet of Safale 04 to 2.5 gallons - and rehydrated.

However, despite there being two days between them the bubbling on both wound down at around the same time. If anything, Wednesday's brew out-bubbled Friday's.

I'll leave it a little longer before I take gravity readings, but I'm a little tender about Friday's brew. Not having any homebrew on line, my only recourse is to either brew again, or post here.

Would ten fewer gravity point result in a much lower bubbling rate?

I bet when I check the gravity, everything'll be fine, but you can't blame me for worrying.

Phil

 

[android]

higher gravity = more sugars to ferment, so that would make sense. i'm more than sure they will both be OK.

 

[DuckAssassin]

As a great brewer and helper of new brewers would say...
"An airlock is a cheap peice of Chinese plastic and not a fermentation guage" or "You are dealing with living organizims who work on thier own timetable, each brew is different"
Wise words from a wise (and very patient) brewer. The main idea of which is to say, you can't tell anything from bubbles. One might have taken off when you weren't watching, and just appear to be slower. Use you hydrometer to tell you where they are. But, not until they have been working for at least a week.

I know where you are coming from, initially you have a lot of money, time, pride and maybe a little sweat in the game. I haven't learned much, but I have learned that patience, while hard to come by at first, is well rewarded. You will almost definitely enjoy what you have made. It may be a little aggressive to try and perfect a process you only first attempted two days prior without any knowledge of the result, but I commend you for the effort.

 

[Philsc]

At first I thought "it's only .010 less" but subsequently I've done a little math and realized that it's 20% less, so the difference in airlock activity makes a bit more sense.

DuckAssassin, thanks for the words of wisdom. It is true that I've been lax and gone to bed and slept at certain points of the fermentation and haven't been staring in wide eyed concentration at the airlocks, so it is very possible that I may have missed something. I'm trying not to worry. Everything I read on this forum tells me that the beer will do its thing.

Also, I've read that about the airlock: "An airlock is a cheap piece of Chinese plastic". If I remember rightly the next bit goes - "your hydrometer is a scientifically calibrated tool." Wise words.

Yes. I have been a bit aggressive about the brewing. I've read of other beginners not being able to keep their hands off their homebrew before it's ready. I myself have been feeling up PET bottles thinking "mm, that's nice and hard. Carbonating nicely". I deal with the temptation to taste by brewing. I've brewed five times so far. First batch comes on line this weekend. I'm only doing 2.5 gal batches, so I won't be inundated with beer (as if that would be a bad thing, I'm sure I'd be able to find people to help me out).