I brewed a Breakfast Stout clone on Monday. My boil kettle is a 15.5 gallon converted keg and my wort chiller is a copper coil immersion chiller, a 110V fountain pump and a 17 gallon plastic tub. I freeze 10 or more gallon milk jugs full of water a few days before brewing and pile them in the tub. When the water coming out the other end cools down a little I stick it in the tub so it's recirculating. The warm water coming out causes the ice to melt a little faster but I use so many jugs it doesn't matter. I always have ice left when the wort is chilled.
On Monday I was about 8 minutes away from flame out when a dust storm hit. I was in my garage with the propane burner going and chaos erupted. It was like hurricane force winds with blinding dust and sand blowing everywhere. My wife came running out trying to help with damage control. I was trying to get everything lined up to cut the boil off so I could shut the garage door and start chilling - and then the power went out.
By now it was about 8:00 PM - dark enough in the garage to not really be able to do much. The fountain pump ice bath chiller system I use is all together and I can't hook a garden hose up in place of the pump, (even if I wanted to go out into the storm and mess with it in the dark).
So I threw a towel over the boil kettle and called it a day. By 11:00 PM the power had not come back on so I decided to just go bed and dump everything out and clean up in the morning.
Since I live in Phoenix and it was about 115F outside in the middle of "Excessive Heat Warnings", I was still awake at 12:30 AM tossing and turning. I noticed the light in our closet was shining under the door so I got up to go turn it off and while I was getting back in bed it hit me - the power's back on.
So I went out to the garage, fired up the propane burner, got the wort boiling again and set a timer for 10 minutes. My hope was that 10 minutes would kill off anything that might have taken up residency during the 4 and a half hour lull.
I quickly chilled it down just enough to transfer it into my plastic FerMonster, put it in my freezer/fermentation chamber at 67F and went to bed. The next morning it was stabilized at 67F, I rehydrated a packet of US-05, aerated the wort and pitched the yeast.
That was 30 hours ago. I initially hooked up a blow off tube but when I check on it later than night I didn't see anything bubbling. I checked on it a few times today and didn't see anything so I switched it to an airlock about 2 or 3 hours ago. I just checked again and there's absolutely zero sign of any activity in the airlock whatsoever. There was a thin layer of foam on top when I changed to the airlock. I don't know if it was krausen or just foam from aerating. I shook the carboy to rouse the yeast a little after putting the airlock in and the foam seemed to disappear.
Is it possible that fermentation has NOT begun yet? (30 hours?).
Or is it possible fermentation occurred while I had the blow-off hooked up and now it's done? Again, (30 hours?).
I'll keep checking - just curious if anyone had any insight or advice to offer. I've never had a fermentation not start by now and I've never had one finish in only 30 hours. I know airlock activity is not a sign of fermentation . . . but . . . absolute complete nothing???
On Monday I was about 8 minutes away from flame out when a dust storm hit. I was in my garage with the propane burner going and chaos erupted. It was like hurricane force winds with blinding dust and sand blowing everywhere. My wife came running out trying to help with damage control. I was trying to get everything lined up to cut the boil off so I could shut the garage door and start chilling - and then the power went out.
By now it was about 8:00 PM - dark enough in the garage to not really be able to do much. The fountain pump ice bath chiller system I use is all together and I can't hook a garden hose up in place of the pump, (even if I wanted to go out into the storm and mess with it in the dark).
So I threw a towel over the boil kettle and called it a day. By 11:00 PM the power had not come back on so I decided to just go bed and dump everything out and clean up in the morning.
Since I live in Phoenix and it was about 115F outside in the middle of "Excessive Heat Warnings", I was still awake at 12:30 AM tossing and turning. I noticed the light in our closet was shining under the door so I got up to go turn it off and while I was getting back in bed it hit me - the power's back on.
So I went out to the garage, fired up the propane burner, got the wort boiling again and set a timer for 10 minutes. My hope was that 10 minutes would kill off anything that might have taken up residency during the 4 and a half hour lull.
I quickly chilled it down just enough to transfer it into my plastic FerMonster, put it in my freezer/fermentation chamber at 67F and went to bed. The next morning it was stabilized at 67F, I rehydrated a packet of US-05, aerated the wort and pitched the yeast.
That was 30 hours ago. I initially hooked up a blow off tube but when I check on it later than night I didn't see anything bubbling. I checked on it a few times today and didn't see anything so I switched it to an airlock about 2 or 3 hours ago. I just checked again and there's absolutely zero sign of any activity in the airlock whatsoever. There was a thin layer of foam on top when I changed to the airlock. I don't know if it was krausen or just foam from aerating. I shook the carboy to rouse the yeast a little after putting the airlock in and the foam seemed to disappear.
Is it possible that fermentation has NOT begun yet? (30 hours?).
Or is it possible fermentation occurred while I had the blow-off hooked up and now it's done? Again, (30 hours?).
I'll keep checking - just curious if anyone had any insight or advice to offer. I've never had a fermentation not start by now and I've never had one finish in only 30 hours. I know airlock activity is not a sign of fermentation . . . but . . . absolute complete nothing???
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