Bubbling Stopped - Added Water??

[JJRJR]

Hello all, this is my first post. OK. Bought an American Amber from Brewer's Best and I gave it a shot this past Saturday. Followed the instructions to the tee and think I did everything right. Put the cooled Wort into the Primary Fermenter, and that night it started bubbling out of the vapor lock, so I'm thinking all is cool.

Then about another day went by and then stopped bubbling. I thought it was supposed to do that for a week or so??

Anyway, this morning I opened the fermenter and decided to add about a gallon of fresh water, check the temp and stir it up vigorously. I live in South Florida, so even my garage is 78 degrees as is the tap water. I took a hydrometer reading and it was at 1.10. Unfortunately, we didn't take a reading on the first day, so not sure what's up.

So, is it uncommon for the bubbling to stop in two days? Is it ok to add water, and stir like I did? I was going to leave in the primary fermenter for the rest of this week, then transfer to a secondary ferementer this weekend.

Any thoughts?

Thanks to all.

John

 

[TyTanium]

Welcome.

Some yeast work faster than others...at 78 degrees, it probably fermented out very quickly. Did you mean 1.010? That's nice and low. Why did you add water? And why did you stir vigorously?

You want to stir vigorously before fermentation starts to aerate the wort and provide oxygen for the yeast. You DON'T want to stir once fermentation starts because oxygen and finished beer don't go well together.

For next time:
1) Trust your hydrometer, not your airlock. It's fun to watch the airlock bubble, but it's not a reliable indicator of fermentation activity.
2) Ferment cooler. Search the forum for "swamp cooler"
3) Don't stir once the yeast start working
4) Be patient and let the yeast work

 

[chickypad]

Yeah, you really should have left this alone. For one lack of bubbling does not mean fermentation is not going on, but as Ty pointed out if you were fermenting that hot chances are it was mostly done in a couple days. Not sure why you wanted to add water either - you just diluted your beer a fair amount, assuming this is a 5 gallon batch. Worse is that by stirring vigorously you probably caused oxidation, which will make it stale faster.
I'd leave it be another week or two and assuming the gravity is stable bottle it. If you drink it fast it may not have time to get too stale.

Edit - oh and for future batches search this forum for swamp cooler. 78 is way too high for almost everything - even on the higher end for a Belgian. You'll probably get some off flavors, but unfortunately I don't know if you're going to be able to let this batch age to mellow them out.

 

[bchurch]

Hopefully the beer didn't get to much oxygen from all that stirring. If it takes like wet cardboard after a few weeks in the bottle then you know what happened and where that off flavor came from. Live and learn.

 

[Revvy]

You're making the mistake of equating airlock bubbling with "active fermentation" that's really not what they mean.

Fermentation is not always dynamic...just because you don't SEE anything happening doesn't mean that the yeast aren't happily chewing away at whatever fermentables are in there....the only way to know comes from gravity readings, and nothing else.
Your airlock is NOT a fermentation gauge, despite what instructions or other people may have said. It is a VENT, and VALVE to release EXCESS co2 as needed. The amount of bubbles have no correlation to some concrete rate of fermentation. Initially there may be lots of bubbles, because lots of co2 is being generated in the first few days of fermentation. But eventually there's going to be less EXCESS co2 being produced, that doesn't mean fermentation is done, it just means that since most of the sugars have been consumed, the yeast are farting co2 less. SO the rate may change, or it may stop completely because there's no EXCESS being produced.

That's why you need to seperate the idea of bubbling = fermentation from your mindset.

Don't stress about what an airlock does or doesn't do. The rate or lack of or whether or not it bubbles at all, or if it starts and stops has more relation to the environment the fermenter is in, rather than fermentation itself. All it is is a vent, a valve to let our excess gas, especially co2, nothing else. It's not a fermentation gauge whatsoever.

It could just as easily be bubbling or stop bubbling for that matter, due to changes in barometric pressure, temperature, or whether or not the cat or vacuum cleaner bumped into it, as it could be to because it's still fermenting.

Activity, action, bubbles, even krausen can be affected by the envoironment just as much as it being caused by the yeast...so going by that is NOT reliable.

Bubblling or lack of means nothing, like others have said the biggest part of fermentation has wound down, but that doesn't mean there's still not a lot of work for the yeast to still do.

If you want to know what's going on with your beer, then take a gravity reading. The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Do do anything just based on what an airlock does or doesn't do. You'll end up trying to "fix" something that isn't broken, and end up doing more damage, than if you'd just let things be.....

 

[glenn514]

I just brewed a batch of "Phat Tyre Amber" yesterday. By dinner time, the fermentation had begun, although slowly. As the evening progressed, the fermentation became increasingly vigorous...almost furious! Now...almost 100pm CDT the next day, only one or two bubbles will occur per minute. Is the fermentation done? No, I don't think so. But the vigorous activity certainly is over. So, the VISIBLE fermentation of this brew only took about 24 hours! I used Munton's yeast, and the pitch temp was 83°F. So, the warmth and the abundance of fermentable material [original S.G. was 1.050] made the yeast really, REALLY take off.

To OP: on your next brew, just leave it alone and check specific gravity. Read Revvy's post over and over again...and even commit it to memory!

glenn514

 

[JJRJR]

Thanks very much!! Now I understand it much better. Trial and error, but hope I didn't ruin it with stirring and adding water. Should I not do a secondary fermentation for a couple weeks and just go right to bottles?
Thanks,

John

 

[DrummerBoySeth]

If you are not planning to dry hop, or add anything else to the beer, you do not NEED to secondary. The largest advantage of using a secondary on "standard" brews is the fact that it allows more of the yeast/trub/hop particles/crap fall out of suspension, so you get a clearer beer at bottling time. It is a good idea to let the beer "bulk condition" in either the primary fermenter or a secondary tank for a few more weeks, but there is no NEED to transfer to another vessel, unless you WANT to.

Since you already stirred the beer (possibly creating oxidation) I personally recommend leaving the beer in primary for another week or two, until you are ready to bottle. That will give the yeast the most time to condition the beer, and minimize any further chance for oxidation (which will make your beer go stale more quickly)

I hope t

 

[JJRJR]

Just put the Wort in the fridge to cool it down. Will leave in there another few days then go to secondary for a week or so and see how it looks.

Thanks all.

John

 

[oakbarn]

I have labels that have a cop holding a stop sign. The text reads "LITFA, the Yeast know what they are doing. Bubbles, we don't need no stinking bubbles!" I put them on my fermenters.

 

[oakbarn]

Here is the label

 

[chickypad]

Just put the Wort in the fridge to cool it down. Will leave in there another few days then go to secondary for a week or so and see how it looks.

When you say fridge, you mean a fermentation fridge where you are controlling the temp, right? Not a regular fridge at like 40 degrees. You want the yeast to finish up so don't cold crash yet.

 

[lgilmore]

did this brew come with any instructions? It is always a bad sign when you say "I followed instructions to the tee." Next words "then I.... " which means doing something outside of the instructions.

I came into brewing with a background in pickling and canning, so it was pretty easy for me to follow the brewing instructions and then simply leave the beer alone for at least a week. I can understand the excitement of making beer and the impatience that comes with that excitement. But ya gotta give your brew the time it needs. Usually you're brewing from a receipe or following an instruction sheet. Stay pretty true to that and you should be fine in the future.

 

[atom]

Here is the label

you have some letters mixed up there....

 

[oakbarn]

Yes I did!

 

[Cavtanker]

I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one that did this. Currently, my very first ever batch of beer is sitting in the primary fermenter. I got an Autumn Amber Ale kit from Midwest and It's been in the primary fermentation for four days. It started bubbling in the evening of the first night in the fermenter. After two days of vigorous bubbling activity, I noticed I was about 3/4 of a gallon short of the 5 gallon mark. So I topped it off thinking I had to be true to the recipe. I also stirred it as well. Now it's very stagnant, not doing anything. If I swirl the bucket a little bit, it'll bubble and spurt for a couple of minutes and then stop. I tried to recharge it with another packet of yeast, still nothing. After reading this thread, I'll just leave it alone in the primary fermenter for a couple of weeks and then bottle it, hoping I didn't oxidize it too much. Right now the gravity is at 1.016. The recipe said that it's ready at 1.010-1.012. Is there a way I can test it to see if it's even worth bottling? I'd hate to go through the trouble of bottling it if I ruined the batch.