First time seeing an active fermentation

[djonesax]

I’ve been fermenting in buckets or a speidel for 15 years, so I’ve never actually been able to see an active fermentation until now. Pretty wild.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I’ve been fermenting in buckets or a speidel for 15 years, so I’ve never actually been able to see an active fermentation until now. Pretty wild.

 

[worlddivides]

For sure. I use opaque plastic now, but I started out on glass carboys and I remember the Belgian abbey yeast I used going absolutely insane, generating tons of heat, clogging up the airlock, and sending foam all over the inside of my Cool Brewing bag. The inside of the fermenter was practically churning. Since I used transparent fermenters for quite a few years, I don't really mind using opaque ones now (my main fermenter was a Speidel for a while as well), but it's definitely interesting to watch.

 

[day_trippr]

Ah, yes, fermentation porn
These go way back - before I had decent temperature control - so these were rather boisterous.
Still using the same carboys after all these years...

Cheers!

 

[Knightshade]

Great reason to do small batch stuff for me!

5G batches are all in Torpedos now. I have my big Fermonsters in the attic, but haven’t used them in years.

 

[CarenSolis]

That's awesome! Seeing an active fermentation in action is always exciting, especially after years of brewing. It really gives you a new appreciation for the process! Keep up the great work!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I’ve been fermenting in buckets or a speidel for 15 years, so I’ve never actually been able to see an active fermentation until now. Pretty wild.

Besides being enjoyable to watch, I do find that the information you get from a clear fermenter is very useful and educational. Besides seeing initial signs of fermentation, and seeing when fermentation has slowed/krausen has dropped, it is useful to see what a dry hop addition is doing or to see the level when transferring out. (In your case, the buckets and Speidels still let you see some of this.)

Adding a Tilt hydrometer in to the mix added more information. For example, I usually see a pretty good krausen formed before the Tilt shows any gravity drop (I had assumed that the gravity started to drop before the krausen formed). Also, once the krausen starts to fall back into the beer, I am usually very close to the FG (I had assumed that I was still maybe 10 points away from FG at that point).

I have some stainless fermenters that I am using more these days, but I still often use my PET Fermonsters.