I think I messed up......

[militarymech]

OK. I'm a fairly new brewer, and have about 5 batches under my belt. Two days ago I made a batch of beer from an ingredient kit. I've used this kit before and there were no real problems with the brewing.

Its been two days and I have no activity in my bucket. No CO2 coming out of the bubbler.

I think I might have gone wrong in two places.....

The water that comes out of my tap is awful, so I take a carboy down to the store and fill it up with reverse osmosis water. This time, I sanitized the carboy before filling it up because it had been sitting for a while. There was still starsan foam in the carboy when I filled it up..... Could this star san residue have killed my yeast?

Also, I don't have an immersion chiller, so I use a bag of ice to cool my wort. This time, there was still a little Ice in the wort when I pitched my yeast and put it away. I figured this wouldn't really harm anything, as the yeast would just sit until it warmed up. Did the cold hurt the yeast?

Thanks in advance guys.

William

 

[justenoughforme]

i guarentee you the star san residue didn't kill you yeast.


even mixed 25% it becomes useless.

think the weight of bubbles in all that water

 

[ol-hazza]

Star san is a yeast nutrient in low concentration they tell me, so a small amount of star san or foam is nothing to fear.

Cool temperatures will not kill the yeast, but they will not be active until back in the warm temps (depending on yeast strain). Do you know the temperature of the wort when you pitched your yeast?

One problem with using ice is that the water it was made from may not be sterile and you can introduce nasties through it, so be mindful of that when using this method.

Also with RO water you want to be adding brewing salts as they enhance your brew, Water is my weak field in brewing though so hopefully someone else can advise you on that.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Do not dear the foam - StarSan is fine.

As to the other, you might be better off setting your kettle of wort inside an ice bath, rather than putting the ice into the wort. You want it to cool down to below 70 egrees.

Also, You might consider just using a spring water that you are fond of, and not getting too scientific about it.

In any case, I think your problem might lie somewhere else - dead yeast or too-cool fermenting temperatures are my two guesses.

Good luck!

 

[BrotherBock]

What yeast did you use? Some are notoriously slow starters. Also, take a gravity reading and see if there has been any fermentation.

If it's not fermenting then give it a good and vigorous shake, make sure its warm enough and give it another 24 hours. If no activity by the third day I'd pitch more yeast. Actually, you could just go get more yeast now anyway. It won't hurt it to add some extra.

On a side note, I'd stop putting ice into you wort. You're begging for an infection.

 

[justenoughforme]

These comments about ice asking for infection:

ice water is purified, it's at least as good as tap by federal law in the usa...

... how does it introduce nasties?

do you guys pre boil your tap water ?


edit, i didnt mean to hijack, i work in water.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I'm not suggesting that the ice itself is contaminated - however, now that I think about it, the bag that it is in could very well be.

My main point was that if he is putting ice directly into the wort, then he runs a chance of diluting it or introducing off-qualities due to the nature of the water that the ice is made from (minerals (or lack thereof), chlorine etc.).

In any case, it simply makes more sense - to me - to put freshly-boiled wort into an ice-bath, rather than putting the ice bath into the wort.

 

[militarymech]

I learned about home brewing from a TV Show, GOOD EATS. This is how the host cooled his wort down. I've done it like this from the start and have never had a problem.....

 

[slym2none]

I have seen a lot of nasty, moldy commercial ice-machines. If this is coming from your home freezer, I'd trust it a lot more, but if this is pre-bagged ice? No thank you.

 

[ol-hazza]

These comments about ice asking for infection:

ice water is purified, it's at least as good as tap by federal law in the usa...

... how does it introduce nasties?

do you guys pre boil your tap water ?


edit, i didnt mean to hijack, i work in water.

No doubt they are using tap water to make the ice, so it is of a decent standard. However that doesn't mean its free from bugs and can also pick them up in the packaging and transport.

I'm not saying this method can't be used but I think most will agree it's not the most ideal.

I don't pre boil tap water but I also don't add any tap water after the boil which is how I minimise the risk

 

[asterix404]

The ice, and the bag, will not contaminate your beer. Anything added to the wort much below 150 runs the (VERY MINOR) risk of introducing something you don't want. Ice still left floating... that might have done it. It is possible that you shocked your yeast and killed it. Yeast is a very picky animal and much like humans, if you go from being room temperature to going to freezing cold, you don't like it much. This is why yeast always need to be liquefied if in dry packets, or hopefully in some large volume of liquid (like a starter) if liquid. What was the temperature when you pitched? If there are very hot spots remaining and very cold spots, it might have killed off most of your yeast. Note though, not all of your yeast is likely dead. Some of it is probably fine and you are getting a very slow start. If you are not seeing anything on top of the wort, chances are you need to repitch yeast and I would recommend doing that as soon as possible.

Star San is a no-rinse sanitizer. It doesn't hurt your beer at all.

 

[doug293cz]

Back to the OP's original questions.

1. It can take up to three days for fermentation to start, so no activity at two days is not necessarily a problem.
2. Fermentation buckets are notorious for leaking around the lid, so that you don't see the expected bubbles in the airlock. Since the CO2 from fermentation provides a positive pressure inside the bucket, the leaks are not a problem. A better visual indicator is evidence of krausen formation on the side of the bucket, just above the liquid level.

Brew on

 

[chawn]

I learned about home brewing from a TV Show, GOOD EATS. This is how the host cooled his wort down. I've done it like this from the start and have never had a problem.....

I highly recommend reading "How to Brew" by John Palmer. It's free and on the Internet; you can Google it.

He cautions against using commercial ice even in an ice bath. While I personally believe that's a little extreme, adding it directly to the wort is probably flirting with disaster.

If you continue this practice, you're a prime candidate for the "Is My Beer Infected?" thread.

 

[stuknkrvl]

Also, You might consider just using a spring water that you are fond of, and not getting too scientific about it.

Second this. My tap water sucks too, so I went to Walmart and bought some Ozarka spring water. Their website lists a water report. I'm not sure if it was perfect (still learning about water) but it has calcium and magnesium and a host of other happy-yeast minerals in it and it tastes good.

I've also brewed a batch with RO water. It's still in the bottle conditioning right now, but it's a cloudy, manky looking mess with a crap load of trub/yeast in the bottom of the bottles. Won't be doing that again.

Good luck!

 

[militarymech]

Well, I got home from work and checked on the beer. It has a crozien (spelling?) and sure does smell right. Just not a lot of activity in the bubbler. Bad seal? Slow ferment? Oh well, it seems to be doing fine.

 

[GrogNerd]

when I was doing extract batches with a partial boil, I would buy a couple gallons of drinking water and keep those in the fridge to use to top off the batch, rather than ice machine or bagged ice

2.5 to 3 gallons at 40° will get 2.5 to 3 gallons at 120° down to pitch temp fairly quickly, so you would have to do a cold water bath first, but that gets it from boiling down to 120° quickly too.