thatshowyougetants
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2012
- Messages
- 85
- Reaction score
- 10
I am making the None More Black Vanilla Stout recipe (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/none-more-black-vanilla-stout-96969/) using White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast.
This is my first time using White Labs yeast and I don't think I shook it hard enough. When I pitched it, some came out as a 'clump'. This worried me. I pitched at 5pm Saturday.
Fast-forward to 7am Tuesday 36 hours since pitching and still no signs of bubbling in the airlock. However if I shine a flashlight into the lid of my Ale Pail (a good trick I figured out) I can see what looks like probably an inch of krausen above the wort level. Kindly save your breath about how a bubbling airlock is not a fermentation indicator. I have never had a batch go this long without bubbling CO2 out the airlock.
So this morning I gave the fermenter a few shakes just in case that might do something (incidentally I also pressed the airlock into the grommet a little more, but I don't think it was loose - I had already done this a few times) well 5 minutes later the airlock was bubbling more than once per second. A half hour later it was still bubbling away.
I think it's so weird that shaking seems to have encouraged it to start bubbling. I wonder if a crusty krausen had kept the CO2 in solution in the beer until I disturbed it?
This is my first time using White Labs yeast and I don't think I shook it hard enough. When I pitched it, some came out as a 'clump'. This worried me. I pitched at 5pm Saturday.
Fast-forward to 7am Tuesday 36 hours since pitching and still no signs of bubbling in the airlock. However if I shine a flashlight into the lid of my Ale Pail (a good trick I figured out) I can see what looks like probably an inch of krausen above the wort level. Kindly save your breath about how a bubbling airlock is not a fermentation indicator. I have never had a batch go this long without bubbling CO2 out the airlock.
So this morning I gave the fermenter a few shakes just in case that might do something (incidentally I also pressed the airlock into the grommet a little more, but I don't think it was loose - I had already done this a few times) well 5 minutes later the airlock was bubbling more than once per second. A half hour later it was still bubbling away.
I think it's so weird that shaking seems to have encouraged it to start bubbling. I wonder if a crusty krausen had kept the CO2 in solution in the beer until I disturbed it?