No fermentation after four days

[bigadam]

I made two wheat beers this weekend, one shandy and one strawberry blonde. The shandy was pretty straight forward, wheat and pale grains with 2 oz Willamette hops. I forget the yeast right now, but I want to say it was an ale yeast. It has been sitting for four days now without even the slightest hint of any bubbling in the airlock.

The strawberry blonde was the same grains, .5oz Cascade and a basic yeast. The recipe called for you to add 3 pounds of strawberries as well as yeast nutrient. After two days I saw some bubbling, but that has since ceased.

Any thoughts/suggestions for either? I can understand nothing happening in the shandy a little more but with all of the sugars in the strawberries plus the nutrient going in to the blonde, I would have thought that one would be off to the races in the airlock.

 

[ccbadd]

Check the gravity to see for sure if any fermentation has occurred. Your lids might not seal really well.

 

[Weezy]

I would think that you either pitched dead yeast, severely underpitched, or your temps are way out of whack.

4 days is a long time but you might as well get to a LHBS, buy a few packs of reputable dry yeast and dump them right in. Control your temps within the range shown on the packets. Give them a taste after a week. If they don't taste funky (i.e. bacteria set in over this first four days) you're good to go.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

Never trust airlock activity for fermentation activity, especially if it's a plastic fermentation bucket - lids are notorious for not holding pressure well. Use a visual inspection for krausen or more reliably take a gravity reading to see if progress is occurring unseen.

 

[bigadam]

Thanks, guys. I have heating pads for both buckets and when I checked last night, they are working, so the temperature for fermentation should be right on. When I go to close the buckets, I hit the lid with a mallet to make sure they're closed, so from a visual standpoint, everything "looks" right. I'll take the gravity readings tonight to see what I find.

If the gravity seems to be moving in the right direction, would you suggest I still try to add more yeast or should I just let it go without the additional yeast?

 

[Effingbeer]

Never trust airlock activity for fermentation activity, especially if it's a plastic fermentation bucket - lids are notorious for not holding pressure well. Use a visual inspection for krausen or more reliably take a gravity reading to see if progress is occurring unseen.

+1 Bet somebody is fermenting in buckets! Besides, if you did not pitch yeast, something would be fermenting it by now. Wash your hands, hold your breath, and pop that lid and take a look. And no, that's not an infection. Oh and don't transfer to secondary. At least until you think it's ready, and then wait a couple more days. Cheers.