no fermentation

[korey15]

ok so i did my first brew yesterday morning. it was an extract style brew and i used wyeast the kind where you need to pop the packet inside. so i popped it and when i went to pitch it only one of the two packet things had popped. so i opened the second packet ad just poured it into the fermentation bucket. so fro what i understand bubbling should be fairly frequent after 12 hours. all i got is a bunch of small bubbles just chillin in the airlock. so its not fermenting. should i add more yeast? or is there another problem. ive been keeping it in my basement and i dont no what the temperature is but i did a batch of cider and left it down there and it worked fine. any help would be appreciated. i may be jumping the gun a bit tho.

 

[Jipper]

What type of beer and yeast? Temperature does matter too, so if you could get a rough estimate of what the temperature is in the basement that would be beneficial. I'm guessing that you'll see some activity within the next 24 hours, but there might be something going on that's preventing a short lag time. Was the yeast cold or warm when you pitched? What was the MFG Date on the yeast packet (if you can recall)?

 

[Setesh]

What is most likely happening is that the yeast are still replicating. Especially if half your yeast was bad (pack not swelling). There are a lot of factors that could effect it, but you are far from long enough to worry about it yet. Just relax and see what it looks like in the morning!

 

[korey15]

its a pale ale. and a london yeast i cant check the mfg i threw it out. ill have to get a thermometer down in the basement so i can keep track of it.

 

[KepowOb]

It's totally possible that fermentation hasn't started yet. You'll have to wait another few days. If you had one good pack, it should ferment, though you might have underpitched if the second pack was no good. Jipper brings up some good points about temperatures as well as the dates of manufacture.

That said, airlock activity doesn't mean anything. If there is any sort of air leak, you won't have any bubbles at all. I had a blowoff tube on my last batch, and despite there being a very large krausen, I had no bubbles at all because the cap thing on my carboy that I use for my blowoff setup isn't perfectly airtight. It does the job fine though, and once the krausen starts to settle I switch back over to a regular airlock just to make sure nothing can get in.

You also mention that you don't know what the temperature in your basement is. If you don't want off-flavours from high fermentation temps, you might want to look into a way to keep track of your beers temperature. You can get cheap, easy to use stick on fermometers from most homebrew supplies (both local and online). They're accuracy is sometimes questioned, but at least they give you a ballpark idea.

 

[JLem]

... i may be jumping the gun a bit tho.

^this

Fermentation can take up to 72 hours before showing any signs. RDWHAHB and check back in a couple of days if still nothing seems to be happening.

 

[korey15]

Checked it yesterdat and it has started bubbling pretty good. Just had to be more patient. And i moved it to a cooler place so hopfully its still mot too warm. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Setesh]

Checked it yesterdat and it has started bubbling pretty good. Just had to be more patient. And i moved it to a cooler place so hopfully its still mot too warm. Thanks for the help guys.

Nice! Don't pay too much attention to the bubbles. It's pretty easy to lose seal somewhere and not have enough pressure for bubbles in the airlock. If you can see into the fermentor then you will know it's going because of the krausen. If I ferment in buckets I use a freezer bag or plastic wrap rubber banded over the top of the bucket so that I can see inside. You don't want to get the rubber band too tight so that CO2 can get out pretty easily. you just want to keep crud from falling into your beer. I prefer this method over a plastic lid that I can't see through. I like to watch! My point is that you won't always have bubbles in the airlock, and you can have them after the beer is done fermenting while it continues off-gassing so bubbles aren't to be trusted

 

[JLem]

Nice! Don't pay too much attention to the bubbles... bubbles aren't to be trusted

+1

The only real way to know were things stand is with a gravity reading.

Fwiw, I ferment in plastic buckets, but leave the lid loose for the first 3-5 days - this way I can easily inspect what's going on. As Setesh said above, as long as you have something covering the top, nothing unwanted is going to get in...especially during active fermentation when all that CO2 is being pushed out. Once fermentation starts to slow, I snap down the lid for a little extra insurance.