72 Hours, no visible fermentation

[rtippet]

My brother and I did our first brew last weekend. And because we are ambitious or morons, we decided to do an all-grain brew. We did a sierra nevada PA clone with Wyeast. We mashed at 152F for 60 mins (held the temp for entire time), did a batch sparge at 169/170F for 30 mins. Boiled 6 gallons for 60 mins, added hops as per schedule. It was a not a rolling boil but a boil (tried to contain boil over as I was using a 7 gallon pot). I live at 8000 ft above sea level so the boil was around 197F. After the boil we chilled with a wort chiller, took about 20-30 mins to get to 68 degrees. Dumped into plastic primary (star-san was used and dumped just prior to dumping wort) - pitched yeast, covered and set airlock (that had star-san in lock) **Here is one potential issue, my brother (being ever eager) grabbed the yeast, cut and pitched prior to putting it into star-san to sanitize)

After 72 hours I had not seen any bubbles in airlock. I was not able to take a hydrometer reading to this point as I realized, during the brew, that my kit did not come with a vessel to put the hydrometer in and I had nothing tall enough to take a reading. After the 72 hr mark I was able to get to a LHBS store and get a vessel - I took a sample with me, took a reading and it was almost as if the hydrometer sank the entire way. it leveled off just above the 1.000.

It smells fine, there is a bit of Krausen, maybe 1/4 inch on the surface. Is she DOA? Thanks - love the site.

 

[AlreadyXDead]

Sounds like it had a quick fermentation. Process looks spot on and if there was visable Krausen, there was fermentation. It appears you are fine. RDWHAHB

 

[twistr25]

Fermentation can be very fast and then slowly finish off. 1.000 sounds a little low, but certainly not unheard of. I assume you mean the package was not sanitized before you pitched? If not that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Sounds like you are good though. Let it sit for at least another week and a half.

My hydrometer came in a tube and I just use that as a graduated cylinder.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Close to 1.0 which is the gravity of plain water usually means it is rather done with fermentation. I would still give it some conditioning time(bottle carb at least 2-3 weeks). Probably quite thin bodied too. What was the estimated OG/FG of your recipe?

 

[DPBISME]

I would guess you have a air leak in your fermentor... I have a couple like that and I just toss a StarSan soaked Tee-Shirt over it and the airlock and the beer comes out fine...

At this point if it has not started.. you could toss somemore yeast on it but like I said I think it is done...

As you brew more you will figure ot how quick the yeast you are using takes off... some are slow starters.

I always have some Nottingham around just in case my beers show no activity in 24 hours, because "most" of the yeast I use should show some activity by then...

At that point you have not lost the beer it all depends...

Good luck and let us know if you made beer?

 

[atoughram]

You might want to fill your hydrometer jar with water and check that. It surprised me a few weeks ago when I did this, my favorite hydrometer was reading 1.006 when it should have been reading 1.000! I had another hydrometer, and it read 1.000.

 

[BigFloyd]

You might want to fill your hydrometer jar with water and check that. It surprised me a few weeks ago when I did this, my favorite hydrometer was reading 1.006 when it should have been reading 1.000! I had another hydrometer, and it read 1.000.

+1 on double-checking the hydro. I have one that reads .002 high and another that reads .002 low!

 

[rtippet]

Hydro was off a bit, transferred to a secondary and now we wait. I'll let you know what we end up with. Either way - it's been fun up to this point and my garden got some good spent grains for food. Thanks for the replies.