JustinR
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- Sep 13, 2019
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I recently tried my first brew kit, a small 2Gallon kit which went over ok. Lots of mistakes, but its still somewhat palatable.
Knowing where I flubbed up last time, I purchased some new equipment to streamline certain steps and was more prepared, so I went with a full 5Gallon Brewers Best American Pale Ale kit. Compared to my first attempt, everything went smoothly. Grains steeped for 20, nice roiling boil for 40 minutes with ingredients added at appropriate intervals, clean rack from kettle to fermenter. I kept everything sanitized. Smooth sailing. However, after ~60 hours I saw no activity in the airlock. When I opened it up, there was no krausen (is that what it's called?) I thought maybe the included yeast packet was junk. So I opened the fermenter, gave it a good stir for a minute, and poured in a newly purchased pack of Safale Yeast as well as 4TSP of yeast energizer. I had excellent activity for a little more than 2 days, but it went dormant shortly after that and has not released any CO2 for two days.
A few things to note about the brew. (1) I "topped off" my 5G bucket with water directly form the faucet. (2) Perhaps I didn't stir the fermenter rigorously enough at first (3) My OG reading was pretty far off (called for 1.050-1.055 and mine was slightly past 1.060.
The reason I am posting is that I am concerned with how brief the activity was. My 2G kit (an IPA) had activity for nearly a week. I'm going to take a FG reading tonight, but I'm guessing this batch is ruined, and I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I would be thankful for any help.
Knowing where I flubbed up last time, I purchased some new equipment to streamline certain steps and was more prepared, so I went with a full 5Gallon Brewers Best American Pale Ale kit. Compared to my first attempt, everything went smoothly. Grains steeped for 20, nice roiling boil for 40 minutes with ingredients added at appropriate intervals, clean rack from kettle to fermenter. I kept everything sanitized. Smooth sailing. However, after ~60 hours I saw no activity in the airlock. When I opened it up, there was no krausen (is that what it's called?) I thought maybe the included yeast packet was junk. So I opened the fermenter, gave it a good stir for a minute, and poured in a newly purchased pack of Safale Yeast as well as 4TSP of yeast energizer. I had excellent activity for a little more than 2 days, but it went dormant shortly after that and has not released any CO2 for two days.
A few things to note about the brew. (1) I "topped off" my 5G bucket with water directly form the faucet. (2) Perhaps I didn't stir the fermenter rigorously enough at first (3) My OG reading was pretty far off (called for 1.050-1.055 and mine was slightly past 1.060.
The reason I am posting is that I am concerned with how brief the activity was. My 2G kit (an IPA) had activity for nearly a week. I'm going to take a FG reading tonight, but I'm guessing this batch is ruined, and I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I would be thankful for any help.