Okay,
It has been 4 days since I brewed my first batch, and I am still getting no action out of the airlock. There was Krausen at first but now it has gone down. I know you can't judge if it is fermenting judging by the airlock but here is the reason I think it might be bad.
First of all, I used water out of my shower to fill it up to the five gallon mark because the fermenter fit nicely in there. I thought it would be okay to do, but now I am thinking it might not have been a good idea. Has anyone else done this in the past?
Second, I didn't think that I needed my Siphon until transfering to the bottling bucket so I didn't sanatize it. Well I needed it to get the beer into my test tube to get the OG. I washed my hands well and the test tube was all sanatized, and I stuck my hand in there to fill it up. I'm thinking this was probably a bad idea. Am I right?
So anyways tomorrow I am going to get a gravity reading and see if it is fermenting. In the case that it is still around 1.045, is there anything that I can do to salvage the beer or should I toss it and try again?
Oh....and I didn't rehydrate the yeast before I pitched it.
Any advice on ways to get around my mistakes for my next batch would be greatly appreciated.
It has been 4 days since I brewed my first batch, and I am still getting no action out of the airlock. There was Krausen at first but now it has gone down. I know you can't judge if it is fermenting judging by the airlock but here is the reason I think it might be bad.
First of all, I used water out of my shower to fill it up to the five gallon mark because the fermenter fit nicely in there. I thought it would be okay to do, but now I am thinking it might not have been a good idea. Has anyone else done this in the past?
Second, I didn't think that I needed my Siphon until transfering to the bottling bucket so I didn't sanatize it. Well I needed it to get the beer into my test tube to get the OG. I washed my hands well and the test tube was all sanatized, and I stuck my hand in there to fill it up. I'm thinking this was probably a bad idea. Am I right?
So anyways tomorrow I am going to get a gravity reading and see if it is fermenting. In the case that it is still around 1.045, is there anything that I can do to salvage the beer or should I toss it and try again?
Oh....and I didn't rehydrate the yeast before I pitched it.
Any advice on ways to get around my mistakes for my next batch would be greatly appreciated.