How long before I should see any sort of activity?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dawn_kiebawls

Lawncare and Landscaping enthusiast
Joined
Jun 10, 2017
Messages
838
Reaction score
516
EDIT: Almost literally as soon as I posted this I looked at my carboy and there is now activity. I knew I shouldn't have panic-posted and just had another homebrew. So, If anyone is wondering, there is approximately a 30 hour delay for Bugfarm2 to start doing anything. Cheers!

Sorry for such a noob question but I've been out of the game for a while, have never used Brett/bugs and have a couple underlying circumstances I'm a little worried about.

I brewed a batch of a Golden Sour and pitched a vial of ECY Bugfarm2 about 24-30 hours ago (no starter as I've read it throws off the ratio of bugs. I'm wishing I made one now). Absolutely zero activity in the airlock, no bubbles forming on the surface, nothing. I know better than to base anything off of the airlock but it's a little alarming since I usually get active fermentation within 12 hours when I pitch my Sacch strains. I had a lapse in judgement since it was a late brew day, I was tired and drinking so I pitched at 80F instead of letting it cool a little more and completely forgot to aerate the wort before pitching.

Back up a few weeks: I ordered the yeast vials with ice packs, they shipped them out on a Wednesday, Covid slowed down the shipment then they got held up over the weekend because of Memorial day so they spent 6 days unrefrigerated and arrived quite warm. I convinced myself they didn't completely give up the ghost but am now questioning that again.

Lastly, we are going out of town Wednesday and will be gone for 4 or 5 days. I was hoping to have it be past high krausen so I wouldn't have to try and talk my sister in law through the process of rigging a blowoff tube over the phone.

Long question short: between the yeast getting stuck in a hot warehouse for a week, a hot pitch and unaerated wort do you think this batch still has a chance or should I pitch something else just to make sure it doesn't get infected?

I'm pretty d**n aggravated with myself that I go so sloppy right when it counted for this batch, because, other than these (critical) errors the brew day went EXTREMELY well! Thanks for all your help and advice. Cheers!
 
Last edited:
:mug: Glad it’s workin now. Stalled fermentation can be a real knuckle biter. What’s the recipe for this Golden Sour? Have you brewed it before?
 
:mug: Glad it’s workin now. Stalled fermentation can be a real knuckle biter. What’s the recipe for this Golden Sour? Have you brewed it before?

I'm glad you found the recipe. Though I havent tasted this recipe the tasting notes provided by the mad fermentationist were exactly what I was looking for!

I was definitely nervous with how slow this one took to show any sings of life considering the variables I was sweating about, but the airlock is rockin, hop/trub/protein bits are churning about in the carboy and all is well!
 
I’ve followed some of the sour threads and I’ve considered trying a co-sour batch. Once they verified it didn’t taint all your plastics and you could still brew normally afterward. Are your bugs the type that hops will kill?
 
I’ve followed some of the sour threads and I’ve considered trying a co-sour batch. Once they verified it didn’t taint all your plastics and you could still brew normally afterward. Are your bugs the type that hops will kill?

No, these aren't the fast sour bugs you're referring to. I'm running a dedicated set of coldside plastic. Which, now that I think about, are sitting awfully close to my fermenting clean beers. I've got some rearranging to do today!
 
Back
Top