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The beer itself wouldn't change temperature that quickly just by moving it from 80 to 68. It has a pretty large thermal mass, so the ambient temp will change it over the course of several hours. It's probably done or close to done -- and the airlock should never be your tool for evaluating...

Odds are you were pretty close since it was an extract beer. But the multiple by 4 rule will give you a decent approximation. If its even in the ballpark, just assume you got it right on.

I agree. This starter method initially had me questioning the pitching rate, but I don't think the beers are big enough to really make that an issue. I will say that I'm not sure why anyone is advocating topping off the starter (I've never heard of the method before, so if someone knows the...

I'd also say give it more time. Half a day isn't a big window for the yeast to multiply...especially if you lost some initially when opening the vial. I actually made a starter with WL002 last week (theres a thread about it somewhere on here). I got a bunch of overflow after about 24 hours and...

It's amazing how difficult it is to thoroughly mix wort and water. If you added water and then took a sample off the top, your OG reading was probably mostly water and not much wort. Also, in the spirit of Revvy - your airlock not bubbling is not an indication of a problem with fermentation...

Oh man, LOL indeed.

Where on they hydro does it stop? If you're testing it in water and the water only comes up to 1.020 or something like that, then its not enough water. Fill it up to where the water level can sit at 1.000 with the hydro in the tube, and then fill it up a little more. That should tell you if its...

Definitely sounds like not enough liquid in the tube. If fermentation has started you won't get an accurate OG, but it might still be useful to take one to get a rough sense of your starting point. It'll be important to take them later on to figure out when fermentation has finished.

Indeed. The "Vermonster" by Rock Art Brewery in Vermont. There's a pretty cool video about the whole ordeal:

You probably won't notice much of an effect. It's much harder to overpitch than it is to underpitch. If anything, the higher quantity of yeast will mean less overall yeast reproduction, which is an important process in developing the full flavor profile that a given strain brings to the beer...

I'm in the camp that doesn't top off after fermentation is under way. To me it is just watering down the beer, which I don't want to do. Even if I went way above my OG, if I chose not to add water at the time I took my reading on brew day, I don't see why I would now want to a few weeks in.

I consider the bottles gone when I give them away, if only because it's more hassle than its worth trying to track them down. Plus...drinking beer to collect more bottles isn't such a bad gig.

PBW works wonders! I just started using the stuff about 2 weeks ago and am amazed I never found it earlier. Mix it up, let it sit for a couple hours, and rinse. ...just don't let it touch anything with teflon.

+1. Excellent advice.

It's pretty much up to the yeast at this point. If you try to cold crash them before the yeast are done, then you'll end up with a lot of extra sugar in the beer and it'll taste way too sweet. You might get a few that go off, but I'm sure you'll end up with plenty of them intact. Let them do...

There's no downside to letting it sit for a few more days...except everything in the schedule will be pushed back a few days and it'll be 5 days longer than expected until you get to drink your beer!

P.S. I'm just assuming we're talking about brass here.

+1 on either de-leading with peroxide and vinegar or ordering a new one and saying its all fixed. FWIW, I remember a discussion on one of the brewing network podcasts about brass fittings. They talked about how the percent of lead (i.e. 4% or .25%) is a percent of the entire weight, not just...

You might try reading the section of Palmer's book on AG brewing: http://howtobrew.com/section3/index.html That gives an overview of efficiency and some of the science behind it.

+1 on temp. Take a gravity reading and note the temp of the sample. That way you can correct for an artificially low reading if the sample is above 60*.