Adding Giraldis Cocoa

[mmead]

Impulsively I added a half cup of Giraldi's 100% cocoa to the boil of a 5 gal batch of Belgian Ale. Now I see I'm seeing no more bubbles at the air lock after 48 hours. Yesterday (48 hrs after pitching) I saw 50 bubbles a minute. This morning, none. This seems like a very fast primary fermentation. Could it be the PH of the cocoa is screwing with the happiness of the yeasties?
PS.. Broke my hydrometer over the holidays and will buy new one today at LHBS.

 

[Revvy]

An airlock is not a fermentation gauge....the bubbles, or rate of bubbles or lack of bubbles don't have a correlation to gravity points or anything, so it's a useless gauge. It's a vent. get your hydrometer replaced, and use that. It's doubtful your adding chocolate has changed anything in any way. Or that anything is even wrong. Just that your airlock has slowed down...which only means that your airlock has slowed down...which means nothing.