No airlock activity

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Sergiy

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Hi, I don't see any airlock activity after 24h. I got a lot of headspace in primary, 16 liters in 30 liters plastic carboy. Will i see any activity or headspace are too much? The reason I'm asking because i will go for a secondary for dry hopping, and i want to know when to transfer. Im doing aipa with og 1.068.
 
What yeast was used? What was your pitching temp and I'm assuming you have a bung with an airlock . Is the bung seated all the way ? It's not common but I've had fermentation take a tad over 24hrs to start before . Can you see any activity in the beer at all ?
 
Yeast was m44, pitch temp around 20 Celsius. Carboy isn't transparent, right can't see what is inside. Bung is sealed and i use 3 piece airlock
 
I added water after i pitched the yeast, to correct gravity, could it be the issue?
 
Lift the cup part of the airlock and gentle drop it back into the solution. Does it stay up or sink down to the exit pipe? If it sinks you are not air tight.

If it stay up without sinking 24hrs is still earlier enough to pull the bung and peek inside to check to see if you have activity.

In general a proper pitch of yeast and oxygen you should have something happening in 12hrs post pitch.
 
Yeast was m44, pitch temp around 20 Celsius. Carboy isn't transparent, right can't see what is inside. Bung is sealed and i use 3 piece airlock

How much did you use? 1.068 is a fairly big beer and a big pitch would serve you well.
 
Part of my post-pitch process with my plastic buckets is to press gently/tap on the cover and observe the 3-piece airlock. If everything is seated correctly you will see bubbles or the cap piece jump in response to the pressure.

If there is no obvious change then there is a leak somewhere where CO2 will escape. The one time I forgot to do this is the time where there was a leak; I had waited for 72 hours for fermentation to "start" when in actuality it was almost done.
 
Lift the cup part of the airlock and gentle drop it back into the solution. Does it stay up or sink down to the exit pipe? If it sinks you are not air tight.

If it stay up without sinking 24hrs is still earlier enough to pull the bung and peek inside to check to see if you have activity.

In general a proper pitch of yeast and oxygen you should have something happening in 12hrs post pitch.

I taped on the cover and i see bubbles in the airlock, so i assume no leak issue. Could the huge amount of headspace be a problem? And is it worth to check gravity in a few day, may be fermentation process is ok?
 
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Head space should not have any impact on how the airlocks works with respected to venting CO2 from fermentation. Bubbles in the airlock does seem like you have a seal and it was just a slow start.

Personally I don't think I would like a fermentor I needed to tape shut. Everybody is different on opening their fermenters, but I remove the airlock briefly to check gravity at 36hr post pitch, then maybe 24hrs and 48hr past that point.
 
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