I think my first AG went wrong

[Loodachris]

For starters I went by this recipe for my first AG batch https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f57/simple-helles-ag-53739/

Everything went fine as far as I can tell except I missed the part where it says to put the hops in for 60 minutes so I ended up adding the hops for the full 90 minute boil. I did add some Tettnanger at the last 15 and 5 minutes of the boil though. What if any problem could come about from that?

My second problem is on the recipe it says "Pitch and ferment at 50F" so I cooled my wort to 50F and pitched my yeast. This was on Sunday night around 8:00pm. The bottle of yeast says pitch at 70F but nothing about ferment at 50F but the paper that I got from White Labs for this yeast says ferment at 50-55F which my garage was but nothing was going on. I have moved it inside and came home today and still nothing at 65F I now have a space heater blowing somewhat warm air on the bucket and the airlock has a bubble every few minutes or so. What would you think went wrong and what should I really be doing at this point? Should I be worried about bacteria and just dump the whole bucket and start again? Sorry for the long post by the way

 

[S0meB0dy]

You may have increased the bitterness slightly by adding your hops for 90 minutes instead of 60 but I wouldn't worry about that.

Did you make a starter for your yeast? How old was the vial? Lagers can take a while longer than ales to show any signs of active fermentation. You could just be experiencing a long lag time if you had older yeast, did not make a starter and pitched cold. I like to make a starter a few days before I brew a lager and pitch it around 65F and slowly bring it down to lager temps. There have been times where I don't see signs of fermentation for 3-4 days.

If you are really worried that the beer is not fermenting you can pick up another vial of yeast and pitch it but I would not dump it at this point.

 

[hough77]

The website for that yeast says to "ferment at 50-55" maybe you should have pitched at 70 to get it going. A starter would have helped,especially for a lager from what I have read. Never brewed a lager...yet.

 

[lowtones84]

Don't dump it! I would take the space heater off of it and perhaps move it back out to your garage. How long has it been since you pitched yeast? Sometimes it can take a while for them to become active and start fermenting.

I don't think having the hops in for 90 minutes rather than 60 will do anything bad to your beer. Like many people like to say: Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!

 

[Kaz]

Don't worry about the hops. Move the bucket/carboy back to where it is 50F. Are you sure that wehen you put it in your garage that the temp in the fermenter is 50? If its sitting directly on a concrete floor, the temp can be several degrees lower than air temperature. A lager can take several days to show signs of fermentation. The airlock might also never bubble. That's the one thing I don't like about the buckets, you can't see what's going on in them. I would move it back to where its 50F and leave it a few more days and then take a gravity reading or just pop the lid and look for some activity. Generally, for a lager, I try to chill the wort to about 48F, pitch at 48F and let it warm to 50F. Usually it starts in about 48 hours and then after about 2 weeks I warm it up to about 60 for a few days for a diacetyl rest and then wait a week to keg and lager.

 

[Loodachris]

Don't worry about the hops. Move the bucket/carboy back to where it is 50F. Are you sure that wehen you put it in your garage that the temp in the fermenter is 50? If its sitting directly on a concrete floor, the temp can be several degrees lower than air temperature. A lager can take several days to show signs of fermentation. The airlock might also never bubble. That's the one thing I don't like about the buckets, you can't see what's going on in them. I would move it back to where its 50F and leave it a few more days and then take a gravity reading or just pop the lid and look for some activity. I bet you'll be surprised,

This is my first lager and all grain so I guess I should have read more about it before starting. The bucket is in a round plastic tray then on the concrete floor so pretty much the same thing so I'll have to get it off the floor somehow. Would the airlock not bubble because of the slow fermentation?

 

[daksin]

Yea, I would want to know if you used the suggested yeast, and if you made a starter for it. There should be no problem pitching at the fermenting temp, but you may have cold shocked them a bit if your yeast was room temp and your wort was 50.

About the hops, the 90 min addition won't be any different from the 60 min, so you're fine there, but that recipe (and most clean light lagers) doesn't call for any late additions like you added. It will have some hop flavor/aroma that wasn't in the recipe and may be a little out of balance, but it that's what you like, the BJCP isn't going to come knock down your door and pour the beer in your yard.

 

[Kaz]

There are a plethora of reasons as to why the airlock isn't bubbling, that's why taking a gravity reading is the only way to know for sure how the fermentation is going.

 

[Loodachris]

Yea, I would want to know if you used the suggested yeast, and if you made a starter for it. There should be no problem pitching at the fermenting temp, but you may have cold shocked them a bit if your yeast was room temp and your wort was 50.

About the hops, the 90 min addition won't be any different from the 60 min, so you're fine there, but that recipe (and most clean light lagers) doesn't call for any late additions like you added. It will have some hop flavor/aroma that wasn't in the recipe and may be a little out of balance, but it that's what you like, the BJCP isn't going to come knock down your door and pour the beer in your yard.

Whoops I forgot to answer one of the main questions but no I didn't make a starter ( don't know anything about that yet) I just took the White Labs vial ( the same that is called for in the recipe) and had it on my counter for about 10 minutes then shook it up and pitched it. When I was at the home brew supply store I asked what I could use to make it a bit more flavorfull in the hops department so they suggested Saz at the end of the boil and see how that works...but I shot that down because I'm not a big fan of that one so I went with the Tet

 

[kh54s10]

Lagers usually require a LOT of yeast cells. If you did not make a large starter you might need a few days to a week while the yeast build up their numbers THEN start their work in fermenting the beer.

Check out mrmalty.com for information on yeast and yeast starters.

The bucket may be leaking a bit and the airlock might not bubble AT ALL and it will still be fermenting. I would wait for this one for at least another week then take gravity readings to determine the state of the fermentation.

Do not give up on it yet.

 

[Loodachris]

Thanks everyone for your help. I think the little bit of hot air from the heater got it kinda going so now in my garage I can see the airlock bubbling a few times a minute. Hopefully it all works out. Doing my first all grain was much more fun then the partials I would normally do the only problem is now I find myself shopping for more things