OK... I'm just being curious and wanted to just ask around if all is going okay with my latest batch. I'm still pretty new to brewing and have been reasonably successful with a couple Ales so far. I am making my first attempt at Stouts with the Northern Brewer Dry Irish Stout (5 gallon extract kit). I'm trying a few new things with this batch that I haven't done prior.. These are, making a starter with liquid yeast and aerating with a diffusion stone.. But I did have some concerns at the start of making the starter as I had a smack pack of Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale that never inflated after smacking (Confirmed inner pouch had burst upon smack) Even though the pack never inflated, I still pitched the yeast to the starter and let it sit for about 36 hours.. Since I was not fully confident in the health of this starter, I decided to hydrate a packet of dry yeast (Nottingham Danstar). Well on Wednesday, I boiled up my kit and followed the directions included. I pitched both the starter and the Nottingham yeast at 76 degrees F. I remembered to aerate and did so for about 20 minutes after pitching (probably should have did this step prior to pitching). I took my OG reading and came up with 1.038 which is a bit lower than the 1.042 that was suggested to expect. Well I moved my carboy (6.5 gallon big mouth bubbler) to my fermentation chamber and set it to 18 degrees C. Late that evening, I noticed that I was already getting bubbles through the 5/16 blow-off tube and the krausen was forming.. The next morning the krausen was about 4 inches tall and was bubbling vigorously, also the little yeasties were really swirling and swimming about.. on Friday morning, the krausen had reached the top of the carboy and had evidence that it had even traveled into the blow-off tube, BUT there was no more bubbling. I was wondering if perhaps the airlock the blow-off tube was attached too might be plugged.. so I squeezed the carboy a bit and could see the water level at the end of the tube, rise and fall as I did so. So seemed like the airlock was still working despite that the krausen was slightly visible through the base of the airlock stem above the rubber stopper. Well this morning (Saturday) I went out and checked on the batch and the krausen has dropped.. it is now about only 3/8 - 1/2 an inch thick and still no signs of bubbling from the end of the blow-off tube. Also.. the yeasties seemed to have really settled down also. I am still seeing little white dots heading to the surface that resemble carbonation that I suspect are CO2 from the yeast cake on the bottom. It just seems a little premature to reach this stage to me and am hoping I'm not experiencing a stuck fermentation. As I have read quite a few threads on stouts that had problems with stuck fermentation. Anyways.. I just wanted to get some feedback from the community as to whether or not this is normal or if some intervention is needed... Ohh and one more question.. There was no mention in the kit directions, but should I have added some wirlflock towards the end of my boil to improve clarity of the finished product? If so, then I missed that opportunity..
Thanks
Ed
Thanks
Ed