Bad Airlock?

[PurpleJeepXJ]

So I have two brews fermenting right now. One Stout and one Hefe. They are in typical plastic carboys and have the generic orange carboy caps. I have two of the chamber airlocks, the "S" shaped plastic .99 ones. I thought my fermentation had stopped on my hefe so I took a gravity reading and it was not close, plus it was still bubbling like crazy in the carboy but not in the airlock. I switched it with the other airlock and the other airlock started bubbling on my hefe and the first hefe airlock did not bubble on the stout. Has anyone had any problems with these airlocks and my question is could I tie both carboys into one airlock using some tubing?

 

[BigJoeBrews]

Did you only switch the airlocks or did you switch the orange caps too? Were they both bubbling at some time during your fermentation? I had an instance with a white stopper (instead of the orange cap), if the airlock was just a little wet, it would slowly slip out of the stopper. After that, I went to blow off hoses. I'm surprised your stout hasn't gotten into your airlock yet... So many of my stouts have created a nasty mess with those airlocks.
BTW, I used the other style bubbler but I don't think that matters?

IMHO, If you already have those orange caps, just go get 4' of hose at the hardware store, prob cost you 5$ but save you alot of headache...

 

[Scut_Monkey]

You most likely have a an orange carboy cap that is not air-tight. This is common and not really a problem unless you have fruit flies around. I have three of these orange carboy caps and only one of them makes an air tight connection on my carboy. This is the main reason many of us around here do NOT recommend monitoring air lock activity as a status of the fermentation progress. You need to rely on the SG reading like you did.

To tie the airlocks together seems like extra work with little to no benefit. If you are worried about it wrap some Saran wrap around the carboy cap at the bottom and see if that gives you some airlock activity. Again, it is really nothing to worry about as mold and dust carrying bacteria will not flow up through the leaking carboy cap and down into the beer.

 

[emjay]

Switch to a drilled stopper/bung for a better seal (and while you're at it, the 3-piece airlocks are worth the TINY investment, and blow-off tubes are worthwhile for the period of most intense fermentation activity). It may not really risk infection with such a small leak, but oxygen could potentially be seeping in as well which at that point could definitely contribute to an inferior finished product.

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

It was the orange cap... I wrapped a piece of wire around it and twisted it up tight. Good call, but now I have noticed that it has been 7 days and neither brew has had any Krausen. Now I am not new to brewing but the longest I have ever had to wait for Krausen was like 5 days according to my notebook. So 7 seems like awhile... plus it is not happening for both brews.