I brewed a wheat ale and pitched the liquid yeast 24 hours ago and still no movement in the airlock yet.. I know the answer is prob just chill back and leave it alone.. But as I'm very new to this I thought I should ask just incase there is something wrong and I needa do something before the batch is ruined.. This is the first time I've used liquid yeast so maybe this just a characteristic..? Any thoughts?
24 hours and no movement in airlock.. Liquid yeast to blame?
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Golddiggie
Well-Known Member
Read up: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/fermentation-can-take-24-72-hrs-show-visible-signs-43635/
Depending on what you're fermenting in, you might not see ANY airlock movement for the entire fermentation. Doesn't mean it's not happening, just means the CO2 is escaping from someplace else, other than the airlock. Also an airlock is not a mystical fermentation meter. To REALLY know if something/nothing is going on, you need to take a gravity reading. Of course, that's only of use IF you took an OG reading before pitching the yeast in.
Depending on what you're fermenting in, you might not see ANY airlock movement for the entire fermentation. Doesn't mean it's not happening, just means the CO2 is escaping from someplace else, other than the airlock. Also an airlock is not a mystical fermentation meter. To REALLY know if something/nothing is going on, you need to take a gravity reading. Of course, that's only of use IF you took an OG reading before pitching the yeast in.
KNOTSANE
Well-Known Member
You got. just let it go. If your fermenting in a bucket, they are prone to leak and you wont see any bubbles. Just be sure your fermentor is in the right temperature range for the yeast you used. The only real way to know if fermentation took place is to check your gravity. Let it go for a week, then start checking gravity and you'll be surprised to see it did ferment and you just missed it. Don't trust anything but your hydrometer to tell if fermentation is complete.
Golddiggie
Well-Known Member
You can also get a decent idea that something is going on if you have a fermometer on the side of the primary and the temperature starts to go up. If you know what your starting temperature (of the wort) was, and you know what the ambient temperature is where the primary sits, you'll know if the yeast is doing it's thing by an increase in temperature inside the primary.
Yes, I see 72 hours quoted everywhere, but I don't agree with it. If it takes that long, something is wrong. At 14 hours I start to get concerned. At 24 hours I start worrying. I just had a similar thing happen. I bumped up the temperature a few degrees after 26 hours, and at 28 hours it had started going. At 31 hours I have a quarter inch of kraeusen on the wort. .... I can sleep easy tonight.
Do you have it warm enough?
If you have it in a bucket, you could have a leak. Do you have any kraeusen on the top of the beer?
Do you have it warm enough?
If you have it in a bucket, you could have a leak. Do you have any kraeusen on the top of the beer?
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stratslinger
Well-Known Member
Beg to differ...
I've had more than a couple take more than the 14 hours when you claim you start to get concerned, and they've come out great.
Additionally, I recently split a double batch of bock with a buddy - as an experiment, we pitched a single smack pack to one and a massive starter to the other. The starter one took off overnight. The smack pack one took 3 days to _start_ to form a krausen - and by start to, I mean there was a very fine ring of bubbles along the sides of the fermenter. The following morning it had a full krausen. Both beers came out great, and I can almost guarantee that you couldn't pick out which batch was which (only one guy in our homebrew club could).
Golddiggie
Well-Known Member
Using a starter, and pure O2 into the wort, usually gets me active fermentation sign within 8-12 hours (tops). I also use yeast nutrient in the boil (both for the starter, and the actual brew) to help things along. My current batch started off cold, about 59F (yeast temperature range is listed as "64-72F")... Was active in under 12 hours. It hit a high temp of 67F (thermo-probe in the thermowell with high/low memory) before going to the down-swing...
Moral of the story, proper yeast preparation and wort treatment can overcome other things. Pitching close to the cell count you should (I'm usually a little under), and proper oxygenation, goes a long way.
Moral of the story, proper yeast preparation and wort treatment can overcome other things. Pitching close to the cell count you should (I'm usually a little under), and proper oxygenation, goes a long way.
MrManifesto
Well-Known Member
i've never had a ferment take longer than 12 hours to get going so personally, i'd worry far before the 72hr mark. but i'm willing to bet OP didn't make a starter/aerate enough/both.
I think you provided the proof for my argument. If you properly pitch it should start fairly quickly. If you don't, it can take a long time. You under-pitched and it took a long time. The risk is stressing the yeast resulting in fusel alcohols and esters, stuck fermentation, and if sanitation was not good, other critters could get set in the wort. You obviously got lucky. I choose to try and pitch proper amounts every time.
If I'm over 14 hours, I start to try and figure out what I did wrong, and what I need to do to correct it. Fortunately it doesn't happen often.
stratslinger
Well-Known Member
I still disagree on the basic premise.
Granted, yes, on the lager we grossly underpitched, which was a mistake, albeit an intentional one. However, I've had other fermentations with no such mistakes made that simply took longer than 14 hours to show signs of kicking off.
And you know what? NONE of those cases resulted in anything other than a very good beer. I know what the science says _should_ have resulted (the esters and all kinds of other byproducts that should have been evident). In fact, I was trying to use that lager experiment to prove to my buddy that all that science was correct and he should start using starters. I more than half expected him to be really disappointed with his (non-starter) batch. But, while you can pick up slight differences between the two, you cannot reliably tell which one had the starter and which did no.
What I'm really trying to get at is this: If the results are still very good beers, I see no reason to worry if fermentation takes longer than you're used to seeing to take off.
chezzesteak
Well-Known Member
Paging revy
I am fermenting in a bucket.. its now closer to 30 hours and nothing really.. i did snap a picture.. what do you think??
I am very carful with sanitation.. I'm just very confused, this has never happened before.. but this is the first time I've used liquid yeast.. The guy at my local home brew shop said just bring the yeast to room temp and pitch it just as you would dry yeast.. i didn't hydrate or anything..
I am very carful with sanitation.. I'm just very confused, this has never happened before.. but this is the first time I've used liquid yeast.. The guy at my local home brew shop said just bring the yeast to room temp and pitch it just as you would dry yeast.. i didn't hydrate or anything..
Golddiggie
Well-Known Member
What yeast did you use? White Labs or Wyeast? What was the date stamp on it? Wyeast has a 'born on' date on it, where White Labs has a 'best used by' date on the vial. If you have an OG, then you could pull a sample to test the current SG... You do have something going on there. If your bucket lid isn't 100% tight to the body, you won't get much (if any) airlock activity. Nature of the beast with buckets.
What was the OG of the brew??? If it was over 1.060 you really should have made a starter. Even if it was around 1.050, you would have been better served with a starter. If the yeast was more than a month old, that could be the issue (longer lag time due to fewer viable cells).
What was the OG of the brew??? If it was over 1.060 you really should have made a starter. Even if it was around 1.050, you would have been better served with a starter. If the yeast was more than a month old, that could be the issue (longer lag time due to fewer viable cells).
macleod319
Well-Known Member
*I can't see the pic at work. With that being said...
Nah, just leave it. The Belgian I just did, WLP530, with a 1L starter and a 1.068 brew OG, still took over 24 hours to give me warm and fuzzy airlock bubbles. Still "actively fermenting" over a week later, with a krausen that looked like a bottle of beer-flavored bubble bath exploded in my carboy. I wish I had taken a pic of it in full glory.
Moral of the story: RDWHAHB; YMMV; etc.
Nah, just leave it. The Belgian I just did, WLP530, with a 1L starter and a 1.068 brew OG, still took over 24 hours to give me warm and fuzzy airlock bubbles. Still "actively fermenting" over a week later, with a krausen that looked like a bottle of beer-flavored bubble bath exploded in my carboy. I wish I had taken a pic of it in full glory.
Moral of the story: RDWHAHB; YMMV; etc.
stratslinger
Well-Known Member
See that ring or bubbles around the rim of the fermenter? That's the start of your krausen, you're good. You should have a good full krausen formed by now, if that was close to midnight (well, my time anyway) last night.
Now - this actually could be due to liquid vs dry yeast. Bear with me for a sec:
Dry yeast packets actually contain a higher cell count than liquid yeast. I've read there's something like 200 or 300 billion cells in your typical packet of dry yeast. Liquid yeast, on the other hand, has about 100 billion cells at packaging time. And, since they're active in that solution, they're more likely to die off over time than dry yeast is. The numbers could be wrong, but the principle is still there: there's a LOT more viable yeast cells in a packet of dry yeast than in your average package of liquid yeast.
So... When you're using liquid yeast, there's two things that are always good to keep in mind: 1) Get yeast packs/vials that are as fresh as possible. I know you saw a "best by" date on there - there is also a "packaged on" date. You want that date to be as close to the current date as possible. 2) Do a couple searches on starters, and consider using them. A simple starter can easily double or triple your cell count.
What you're actually seeing right now is called lag time. When you pitch yeast into a wort, that yeast needs to spend some time reproducing to make enough yeast cells to ferment out the whole wort. With dry yeast, since there's so many more viable cells to begin with, that lag time is shorter. Since a smack pack or vial of liquid yeast has so many fewer cells, it takes longer to reproduce to appropriate levels. If you had made a starter for that liquid yeast, chances are it would've lagged similarly to the dry yeast you're used to.
Now - this actually could be due to liquid vs dry yeast. Bear with me for a sec:
Dry yeast packets actually contain a higher cell count than liquid yeast. I've read there's something like 200 or 300 billion cells in your typical packet of dry yeast. Liquid yeast, on the other hand, has about 100 billion cells at packaging time. And, since they're active in that solution, they're more likely to die off over time than dry yeast is. The numbers could be wrong, but the principle is still there: there's a LOT more viable yeast cells in a packet of dry yeast than in your average package of liquid yeast.
So... When you're using liquid yeast, there's two things that are always good to keep in mind: 1) Get yeast packs/vials that are as fresh as possible. I know you saw a "best by" date on there - there is also a "packaged on" date. You want that date to be as close to the current date as possible. 2) Do a couple searches on starters, and consider using them. A simple starter can easily double or triple your cell count.
What you're actually seeing right now is called lag time. When you pitch yeast into a wort, that yeast needs to spend some time reproducing to make enough yeast cells to ferment out the whole wort. With dry yeast, since there's so many more viable cells to begin with, that lag time is shorter. Since a smack pack or vial of liquid yeast has so many fewer cells, it takes longer to reproduce to appropriate levels. If you had made a starter for that liquid yeast, chances are it would've lagged similarly to the dry yeast you're used to.
i have gone to pitching 3-400+ billion yeast cells in all of my beers and see activity well within 12 hrs. i don't see the point to waiting 72 hrs for an underpitched beer to get going. yeast can be the cheapest ingredient in your beer if you reuse yeast cakes, get free yeast from a brewery or use dry yeast. i don't bother with washing yeast, just scoop up some yeast cake, dump into freshly O2d wort and we're in business.
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