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gver3478

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Hello,
so the other day I bought a beginner homebrewing set. I did everything as instructed and put my yeast in at 10 PM(CEST) on Monday. I did not rehydrate the yeast or anything as in a video I watched they did not do that, they just put it straight in. I sealed the lid put on the boiling cap and the next day I only opened it once to add hops. I'm (trying) to make English IPA. Today I checked and there are no signs of boiling. I did not check the temperature when I put the yeast so, so maybe it could have been above 26 C and so the yeast died or maybe I put a bit too much metabisulphate and water into the boiling cap?
Please help. I checked today again and still no signs of boiling
 
What type of fermenter is it? If it is a bucket and you are basing this on airlock activity it may be fermenting just fine, the lids on those buckets are know to not get a good seal and so it may be pushing through the lid seal instead of the airlock.
 
gver3478 said:
Hello,
so the other day I bought a beginner homebrewing set. I did everything as instructed and put my yeast in at 10 PM(CEST) on Monday. I did not rehydrate the yeast or anything as in a video I watched they did not do that, they just put it straight in. I sealed the lid put on the boiling cap and the next day I only opened it once to add hops. I'm (trying) to make English IPA. Today I checked and there are no signs of boiling. I did not check the temperature when I put the yeast so, so maybe it could have been above 26 C and so the yeast died or maybe I put a bit too much metabisulphate and water into the boiling cap?
Please help. I checked today again and still no signs of boiling
Click to expand...
Chances are it's fermenting just fine. I've had a few batches I've been worried about that don't seem to be fermenting but have turned out just fine. If you're fermenting in a plastic bucket what @bailey mountain brewer said is most likely happening, air is escaping. Not a huge problem, in my opinion, because if CO2 is escaping then air can't get in. Just check your gravity when it's time to rack, age, bottle, etc. and make sure you've hit your mark. If it's way off the mark, then I'd start to worry.
 
26°C is about 79°F to me. I don't pitch till wort gets down to about 21°C (70°F). I also just pitch the dry yeast directly to the wort without making a starter.

Not sure what a "boil cap" is. Is that an airlock or blow off tube?

My ferments will get active within the first twelve or so hours of pitching. 24 hours after they'll bee very very active. Then after 48 to 72 hours they die back to almost nothing, then slowly build over 4 days to a steady bubbling throughout the beer.

I don't go by airlock bubbling. I go by what I can see in the beer to judge activity.

Maybe linking the kit you used might help others provide you some better information.

I'd just wait for 2 to 3 weeks, maybe more, then bottle it and see what results.

You might can re-pitch, but wait and see what others say to that.
 
26c is warm, but not to warm to kill the yeast. Before I made starters I would occasionally pitch warm, 80f being the highest, with no issue. Assuming it is not still at that temp I think it should be ok, this of course also depends on the yeast strain.
 
Yes I agree its not ideal, but its also not going to kill fermentation, again assuming the temp continued to drop after the yeast was pitched to a somewhat more normal temp. Now if it remains warm then you are still going to have fermentation but it will result in off flavors.
 
In the mean time, do another kit.

You've got some experience with the first mashing (if grain kit) and boiling. So use that while fresh in your experience. Don't wait for the other to finish. Especially if a gallon kit.

If your first batch is a winner for taste, it won't last the 4 weeks or more the next batch will take.
 
1619626543317.png
this is what i mean by "boiling cap", was guessing the word, don't really know the correct word in english...sorry. It is a plastic fermantor. I will link my set here:
PRO PLUS in VIK Ekstrakt Recepti SET + DARILO - Vse za pivo
(if it doesn't automaticaly switch to english, click the Uk flag button in the top right corner)
 
gver3478 said:
I will measure the gravity today and tell you where it is at
Click to expand...
Ok so I measured the gravity,its a bit below 1400
Here is a picture I took of the inside, I mixed the hops ingredient so now there are a few bubbles
 

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gver3478 said:
Ok so I measured the gravity,its a bit below 1400
Here is a picture I took of the inside, I mixed the hops ingredient so now there are a few bubbles
Click to expand...

What kind of hydrometer gives a reading of 1400? What's the scale?
 
marc1 said:
It's an airlock. :)
Click to expand...


a device that allows gas the go out but not back in. there's a few different designe's....when i first read boiling cap, i had to check the forum to make sure it wasn't distilling....you can tell my spelling sucks too!

gver3478 said:
Ok so I measured the gravity,its a bit below 1400
Here is a picture I took of the inside, I mixed the hops ingredient so now there are a few bubbles
Click to expand...

looking at that???? did you strain the malt out of the wort? normally during brewing, you drain the liquid away from the malt?
 
bracconiere said:
a device that allows gas the go out but not back in. there's a few different designe's....when i first read boiling cap, i had to check the forum to make sure it wasn't distilling....you can tell my spelling sucks too!



looking at that???? did you strain the malt out of the wort? normally during brewing, you drain the liquid away from the malt?
Click to expand...

It’s a no boil extract kit Mix everything with water, pitch the yeast and cover.
 
That looks like a reasonable amount of kit for the money.

Make sure the lid is clicked on properly .

Often you can hear the ferment as well when it gets going. Expect if that really gets going it could be quite messy with all of those hops.
Must be early hours of the am in Slovenia
 
Last edited:
It looks fine.

96% chance it will be fine/normal.

I suggest you stop opening the lid and just wait several days. When the fermentation finishes, a lot of that stuff will just settle a the bottom.

Take a very small sample in 4 days and just taste it. If it tastes sweet, it likely needs more time. If it tastes like flat beer, you may be close to ready. Either way, get a hydrometer reading and then check again in 3 days.
 
I wonder how old that yeast was, and how it was stored.

Do you remember how much yeast you pitched? There's usually a weight printed on the package, but not always. Kits like those tend to be skimpy on yeast, and not of the best quality. Same for the instructions.

At 26C (79F) one would expect fermentation to run vigorously and fast. Unless something was wrong with the yeast or the wort.

Did you perhaps add any metabisulphite to your wort/beer?

On a side note, dry hopping should be done after fermentation has completed, generally. Not on the second day.
But that's a detail, you're still making beer.
 
My understanding is that this was put in the fermenter on Monday 3 days ago. OP isn't any where near the time to bottle. Many of the hops will settle out by the time 2 or three weeks have passed.

OP does need to keep that lid on. No peeking. Won't hurt to swirl the bucket gently to try and settle some of those hops early on in the ferment. But not with the lid off letting air mix in.

OP just needs to be patient to be rewarded. Fussing and worrying will spoil it.
 
To answer a few of your questions, so the yeast was fresh I hope, checked the expiration date 22' so we're good. I did however dump all of the yeast in as well as all of the hops with my sad attempt at dry hopping(My instructions that came with the kit stated to contact the manufacturer on adding the hops, so I did, no reply, so i googled and read about dry hopping and one site said there are many techniques one of them being you can throw it in immediately, so I did, well about 15h later than I added the yeast but ok). I did get ahold of support from the site I bought the kit from and the guy told me my problem is the room where I'm fermenting is too cold, only 14C(57F), I had it in a room next to my garage... so I took my fermenter into the house in a spare room, where the temp is around 22C(70F) so that it could begin fermenting. NOT that it wasn't before, but it stopped due to the low temperature in that room. So now he said I should wait 6-8 hours and check if fermenting has begun. I did stop opening the lid as he told me it's a chance for bacteria to enter, I poured some beer into my hydrometer to check the gravity and it was around 1040 today(same as yesterday, when I mistakenly wrote 1400, my bad...).

But yeah, I will keep you guys posted, It will take at least a week before I measure the gravity again, as the real fermenting will(hopefully) start tonight and I also need to buy a water thermometer so that I can next time measure the temp before I put the yeast in.
I would also like to thank all of for the enormous amount of tips, great forum you got here :)
 
gver3478 said:
To answer a few of your questions, so the yeast was fresh I hope, checked the expiration date 22' so we're good. I did however dump all of the yeast in as well as all of the hops with my sad attempt at dry hopping(My instructions that came with the kit stated to contact the manufacturer on adding the hops, so I did, no reply, so i googled and read about dry hopping and one site said there are many techniques one of them being you can throw it in immediately, so I did, well about 15h later than I added the yeast but ok). I did get ahold of support from the site I bought the kit from and the guy told me my problem is the room where I'm fermenting is too cold, only 14C(57F), I had it in a room next to my garage... so I took my fermenter into the house in a spare room, where the temp is around 22C(70F) so that it could begin fermenting. NOT that it wasn't before, but it stopped due to the low temperature in that room. So now he said I should wait 6-8 hours and check if fermenting has begun. I did stop opening the lid as he told me it's a chance for bacteria to enter, I poured some beer into my hydrometer to check the gravity and it was around 1040 today(same as yesterday, when I mistakenly wrote 1400, my bad...).

But yeah, I will keep you guys posted, It will take at least a week before I measure the gravity again, as the real fermenting will(hopefully) start tonight and I also need to buy a water thermometer so that I can next time measure the temp before I put the yeast in.
I would also like to thank all of for the enormous amount of tips, great forum you got here :)
Click to expand...

No need to apologize! 1400 is not a normal gravity. 1.040 is. If you were in fact getting 1400 we'd have to figure out what you were measuring with and how, that's why clarity was important. I helped troubleshoot a problem a while ago where the user was misreading and using the wrong scale (a double error), which was leading to wacky results :)

Good luck with the beer - it sounds like it's working now!
:mug:
 
In all sincerity, I doubt you will produce good beer, drinkable sure but not much more.
However if you enjoyed the diy aspect and felt the process seemed fun, buy a 5 liter partial mash starter kit, the only thing you need is a 2 kettles that can hold a couple liters for steeping specialty malt and an ~8 liter kettle for boiling wort. This will produce a far better beer with only a little more effort, and hopefully entice you to fall deeper in to the rabbit hole and join the rest of us obsessive manics.
Are you by any chance Slovenian btw? Na zdravje!
 
It might take a good while to warm your beer up in that warmer room. Put a plastic bottle or two of warm water next to the fermenter and wrap it in some blankets. That will speed up the yeast, you want it to get going fast before something else takes over. Once the yeast gets going it will make it's own heat. When I started with kits years ago I couldn't resist looking in all the time and often giving it a good stir. Not a good habit. But the beer was drinkable, but not memorable.
 
DuncB said:
It might take a good while to warm your beer up in that warmer room. Put a plastic bottle or two of warm water next to the fermenter and wrap it in some blankets. That will speed up the yeast, you want it to get going fast before something else takes over. Once the yeast gets going it will make it's own heat. When I started with kits years ago I couldn't resist looking in all the time and often giving it a good stir. Not a good habit. But the beer was drinkable, but not memorable.
Click to expand...
I have a radiator next to it, it is however turned off since nobody uses that room, should I turn it on, the temp in the room is around 21C, would it help if I made it warmer?
 
gver3478 said:
Hello,
I'm (trying) to make English IPA.
Please help.
Click to expand...

Welcome to HBT.
Congratulations on getting your first brew started. Making IPA's needs some advanced brewing skills and equipment because the hops in IPAs interact with oxygen and that affects the flavor. If your beer doesn't come out all that great, don't give up, you can't expect really high quality from a no boil extract kit.
Go on you tube and watch some videos that show BIAB brewing. Brew some simple ales, stouts and porters that don't require lots of hops. All you need is a brew pot, a BIAB bag, some grain and hops and a kitchen stove. You already have the fermenter and some other items.
:cask:
 
Update:Fermentation has now started at full speed, it's bubbling beautifully. New problem though: tried to measure gravity to see if we're going in the right direction, but when turning the tap, at first only a bit went out and then it just stopped all together. Seems like some sediment build up at the bottom of the fermentor, will this get cleared on its own or is there a way to clear this? The fermentation will end either at the end of next week or the week after, so says my support guy.
So, any ideas?
 
gver3478 said:
Update:Fermentation has now started at full speed, it's bubbling beautifully. New problem though: tried to measure gravity to see if we're going in the right direction, but when turning the tap, at first only a bit went out and then it just stopped all together. Seems like some sediment build up at the bottom of the fermentor, will this get cleared on its own or is there a way to clear this? The fermentation will end either at the end of next week or the week after, so says my support guy.
So, any ideas?
Click to expand...

Well, 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

If you can tell it is still fermenting, no need to check gravity. It can only move one direction. You only need to check gravity of you think fermentation may be over.

I would keep the lid on and wait until it seems like fermentation is over. There may be trub build up around the spigot that is blocking it, but usually, the trub layer will shrink down lower during fermentation (it compacts). So this problem may solve itself.

When you go to use the spigot again, if it is still jammed, try putting a book under the spigot side and wait a few hours to see if the trub will slide back toward the other side of the bucket.

I'm yet to see a spigot so jammed that it won't work. If that were to happen, you may have to siphon the beer out from the top of the bucket. But my guess is that the spigot will work once everything settles (but that first 6-8 ounces out of the spigot may be a tad funky).

Good luck!
 
GoodTruble said:
Well, 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

If you can tell it is still fermenting, no need to check gravity. It can only move one direction. You only need to check gravity of you think fermentation may be over.

I would keep the lid on and wait until it seems like fermentation is over. There may be trub build up around the spigot that is blocking it, but usually, the trub layer will shrink down lower during fermentation (it compacts). So this problem may solve itself.

When you go to use the spigot again, if it is still jammed, try putting a book under the spigot side and wait a few hours to see if the trub will slide back toward the other side of the bucket.

I'm yet to see a spigot so jammed that it won't work. If that were to happen, you may have to siphon the beer out from the top of the bucket. But my guess is that the spigot will work once everything settles (but that first 6-8 ounces out of the spigot may be a tad funky).

Good luck!
Click to expand...
Tap works great again, guess the sediment at the bottom is gone, gravity has gone from 1.040 to 1.019, so that's a very good sign. Incredible what a change of temperature does to fermentation. So gonna check the gravity again in 5 or 6 days, but yeah things are looking good.
 

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