half my beers NEVER blip an airlock....
Seriously?
Revvy said:That's why you need to take a gravity reading to know how your fermentation is going, NOT go by airlocks. The most important tool you can use is a hydrometer.
Revvy said:No, I made it up for ****s and giggles. 'Cause I need to make crap up to help new brewers.
Riles8148 said:Thanks for all the great advice! I plan on checking it in a couple days just for my sanity and excitement.
Lol. Ive only had 2 batches ferment out with no aIrlock action, but 2 is more than none.
I'm never concerned whether it bubbles or not, half my beers NEVER blip an airlock....
ThePearsonFam said:It's not just about the seal though. Many things influence the fermentation and airlock activity. Don't sweat it. Revvy is spot on. Take a gravity reading, know where it's supposed to end up and wait for the consecutive readings.
ArcaneXor said:I have always wondered... If you know the bung/gasket is leaky, why use an airlock at all?
I have always wondered... If you know the bung/gasket is leaky, why use an airlock at all?
Foil = Airlock
It's all Pasteur's experiment.
When Revvy was a little boy his puppy was run over by a truck full of airlocks. What else can explain it?
I agree with almost everything else, but, while it's true that many things influence the airlock activity, most of these these cause the airlock to bubble without fermentation necessarily causing it, whereas the other way around, lack of bubbling is generally about the seal. If you disagree, I'd LOVE to hear some other possibilities - other than something like low pressure suddenly being created in the fermentor - because yeast would have to REALLY be on its last legs to not be able to quickly produce enough to start bubbling again, and if that's the case, it would have spent a while already bubbling vigorously.
There's a reason that priming sugar is able to reliably carbonate bottles all the time. And the only two reasons it won't be carbing, funnily enough, are that
a)it's poorly capped, creating a leaky seal! or...
b) it actually ISN'T attenuating, with a number of causes spanning from yeast in poor health, not enough yeast at all, or - probably most commonly - improper storage temperatures.
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