How slow is too slow?

[Insomniac]

This weekend just gone I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt an AG batch using BIAB. I used too little water for the mash/sparge but I seemed to get an OG roughly where the recipe said so wasn't too worried. Rehydrated some nottingham ive had in the fridge a little while (a month or 2?), but pitched it a little early (only allowed 10 mins rehydration). Shook it up to get some O2 in there and put it in the fridge at 16.5c.

The next morning there was some airlock activity, one bubble every 1 to 2 seconds or so, which seemed OK. All my other batches have started at that rate and then jumped out the air lock the next night.... this one however was exactly the same the next day so I upped the temp to 17.5c, the next night was no change if not a little slower. There is definatly some small bubbles but no krausen and airlock activity is low.

At this point I took it out the fridge, added a little extra water (the OG was a bit above where was expected as I left headspace for the krausen) and swirled it lightly to get the yeast back into suspention.

It's spent the last two nights still bubbling away very slowely. Should I be worried? Last time i opened it (to add the water) it smelt fine, but I have never had any ferment look so uneventful!

I followed this recipe, but scaled down to 1 imperial gallon:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f67/reapers-mild-1st-place-2011-hbt-competition-239228/

 

[WildGingerBrewing]

It's probably fine. Some yeast act differently than others. Bubbling is NOT a sign of fermentation. Quit opening it, leave it alone and most importantly RDWHAB!

 

[TopherM]

Did you just start using temp control as well? A temp controlled fermentation in the 60s is going to be slower than one at room temp in the 70s. Slower and cleaner.

I just did my second batch under a temp-controlled fermentation, and had airlock activity for about 8 days and did not not reach FG until about 11-12.

 

[Insomniac]

I started with mead and found I was making rocket fuel at room temps so found a free fridge and built the aquarium controller for it.

I've only done 3 extract batches before this AG one, one was in the fridge at 16.5c and the other two were at room temp (all wheat beers, so room temp worked fine), previously even the temp controlled batches were very active, less so than room temp but still very active). This is the first one I've had that you could only just tell that anything was going on in there.

Unfortunatly I don't have any beers ready to RDWHAHB, though I guess I could break open a Cyser to see how they are coming on . Don't worry though, I won't open it up again until its completely still, at which point I'll make sure I grab a gravity reading while moving it over to secondary.

Thanks for the quick replies!

 

[Homercidal]

It sounds normal to me. A few degrees can be the difference between nearly blowing off and boring.

 

[Insomniac]

Yeah, I wasn't too worried with it being boring when it was cold, but at room temp (about 21c here) it's still boring which I wasn't expecting.
I'll just have to see how it ends up and take it from there, at the very least I'll learn!

 

[apratsunrthd]

Did you use Nottingham yeast as suggested? This is one of the main reasons I stopped using it. It's just too damn inconsistent. I've had slow fermentations like you describe and I've had SUPER BLOWOFF TUBE GRAB A TOWEL MONSTER fermentations. If I still used dry yeast, I'd go with S-04 any day.

 

[Jsmith82]

I'm using Danstar Nottingham in an ale right now, talk about a snooze fest It's going though, slowly but surely (fermenting on the colder side). I wouldn't sweat it.

Also, great avatar, I'm a sucker for good pixel art..

 

[Homercidal]

Fermentation can vary with other factors too. According to the online conversion I used, 21C equates to 70F, which is higher than I would do nowadays, but certainly not that cold for that yeast.

I have been using Nottingham for a few years and never experienced much variability when brewing the same beers. But their prices are going up, so US-05 or even a harvested liquid culture is starting to be very appealing. I might just start keeping a small frozen bank now that I can pressure sterilize my equipment.