A tale of cold yeast - Revvy was correct

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

phasedweasel

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
168
Reaction score
4
Location
Durham, NC
On Saturday I made up a batch of schwarzbier as an ale. I wanted this to taste clean, so I chose Nottingham yeast and cooled my swamp cooler to 57°.

However, by tonight, 48 hours later, I had noticed no airlock activity on my bucket. I know this isn't indicative of anything, but it makes one worry. Hydrometer in one hand, backup S-05 sachet in the other, prepared to investigate the mystery. Why did I have no bubbles? Was it:

A Pitching warm and then cooling, putting the yeasties back to sleep. I pitched at 68° and then cooled by 11°, maybe they went dormant?
B Bad Nottingham yeast. I had two sachets from the recalled lot, so I pitched them, hoping one would work.
C Classic mountains out of molehills. Maybe a bad seal was simply preventing the gas from going out of the airlock tube.

Well, I opened her up and found a nice krausen. The gravity had dropped from 1.051 to 1.031. I put the backup S-05 away. Revvy and patience were correct once more!
 
Sounds almost familiar, except my ferment has been happening for 2 weeks and a day. I figured 2 weeks went by, so it was about time to take a hydro sample. I used a smack pack of wyeast 1728 Scottish ale yeast which I made a double starter with, and it was going fine for the first 4 or 5 days, except for my blow off tube coming out of the sanitation liquid for I don't even know how long, but no more than a couple hours. Well, SG was 1.064, and my new gravity was 1.026, which was way too high. It didn't even occur to me to test the temp of the hydro sample, as it's been between 50 and 70 for the last 2 weeks. Little did I know my brew closet must have been closer to 50, since the samples temp was 50. I don't know if the temp played that big of a part, but I took the fermenter out of the closet into an ambient temp of 75, and the airlock started bubbling 20 minutes later. I'll check gravity again tomorrow and see how it's going. Also had two cases of belgian quad and a case of cider in the closet that wasn't carbing, and I couldn't figure out why.... I guess now I know
 
Back
Top