Multiple Buckets Question

[rcamara]

Hello!

I brewed a couple of days back, and it has been by far my most troublesome brewday, near the end of the boil, i dropped my small 2 gal fermenter (mr beer one) and it broke.

So I was off to the store and bought a couple of 1 gallon buckets from a plastic vendor (food grade of course) got home, drilled the holes, preped all three one galon fermenters and rehydretad the yeast with water and wort about 50/50.

My friend broke my hidrometer, dropped my cell phone in the sanitizer tray i was using, and didnt had enough airlocks for all three new fermenters.

So i had to improvise, and built the airlocks with a hose and a bottle of water, like I have done a couple of times in the past.

The question...

Only one of the buckets has started fermenting, the other two seem dormant, I check the fermenters by gently pressing the lids and it indeed produces the bubbles that i am desperatly waiting to see.

Has anyone had this issue before?

This is the recipe I did.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=112957

Thanks in advance.

 

[bucketnative]

Do you see signs of fermentation if you look inside the bucket?

Airlock activity is not an absolute indicator of fermentation.

 

[rcamara]

Mmhhh havent checked it, I will Inspect the buckets to see what I see.

 

[C-Rider]

HD sells 2 gal plastic buckets which I use for fermenting and bottling. No problems there.

 

[rcamara]

@bucketnative Today my hidrometer arrived, so I was able to take a gravity read and as you predicted fermentation had occured. :rockin:

So I will star lagering that beer soon. Thanks for the input.

@C-Rider I did not know that and i went to home depot a couple of times that very day. Thank you

 

[Yesfan]

Go to a local bakery or the bakery dept at your Food City, Publix, etc and ask for some of their empty cake icing buckets. They usually have 2 gallons, but I was able to get a three gallon I also used as a bottling bucket. A lot of times the employees there will save you a few as they just throw them away when they empty them.

You can't beat free.

 

[brew703]

Go to a local bakery or the bakery dept at your Food City, Publix, etc and ask for some of their empty cake icing buckets. They usually have 2 gallons, but I was able to get a three gallon I also used as a bottling bucket. A lot of times the employees there will save you a few as they just throw them away when they empty them.

You can't beat free.

I get the 2 gallon and 5 gallon buckets from the bakery dept. Two things to keep in mind if you use these buckets:
1) sometimes the lids do not seal properly so I use duck tape to make sure they are sealed.
2) sometimes the insides may be scratched up. Out of the 10 or so buckets I have, maybe two had scratches to warrant not using them for fermenting.

Just check them before using for fermenting.