secondary fermentation question

[Smellypete]

ok here the deal,

I bought one of those brew your own beer kits. (wort, yeast and priming sugar) all bundled together. the instructions said to cap the bucket for primary fermentation. (against better judgement i followed the directions) naturally the pressure built up and opened a small area of the seal. a bunch of foam and what not leaked out. after it calmed down i put it into my secondary fermenter. now that its in there, I'm only getting about 1 bubble every 30 seconds. my question is did most of the active yeast leak out of the bucket with the foam and left me with a weak fermentation? if so would adding more yeast at this point help out, or is the wort not as active as i think it should be (munich dark lager). any help would be appreciated, many thanks !

 

[NeedsMoreHops]

You'll be fine. The yeast did not leak out with the foam, most of it was still in suspension. What was the timing of all the things that you described? For instance, did the pressure build/leakage occur in the first 0-48 hours? How soon after did you transfer to secondary? Ideally, you should have just left it in primary instead of transferring. Search around this site and you'll see airlock activity is not an indicator of fermentation

 

[Smellypete]

Thanks..

I first noticed the lid opened up the day after I pitched the yeast. It kept fighting the lid (as I kept on reselling it for about 3 days) when it stopped I left it for a day and a half to make sure then I transferred it to a glass carboy tonight.

 

[NeedsMoreHops]

read some threads and you'll see that most likely you will end up with a drinkable beer. Since you had it in primary for about 4-5 days before transferring, you're gonna be okay. Sure, it would be better if you had an airlock, left it in primary 2-4 weeks, etc., but you will most likely have something drinkable. Hope you have an airlock on the carboy, but rely on gravity readings, not airlock activity to gauge fermentation.

 

[Smellypete]

would an airlock on the primary stop the overflow? i could easily drill a hole in it to fit the airlock.

 

[freisste]

No, it would have overflowed anyway.

 

[choosybeggar]

An airlock definitely helps by allowing the CO2 a place to escape. A blow off tube (large diameter hose) is much better as it allows foam to leave during a vigorous ferment without plugging, which easily happens to airlocks. No sure how you fit a bucket with a blow off tube though.

 

[Stones]

What was the OG and what was the gravity when you transferred. You said it was a lager. What was the temperature during the first few days while it was in the primary. I would suspect that you were fermenting it at temperatures closer to target ale temps (65-75 F). If that's the case and you had a well aerated wort, chances are the yeast did its job and the primary fermentation is over. If the primary fermentation was over the seemingly little activity out of the secondaries air lock would be normal.

Even if you were fermenting at lager temperatures, I wouldn't worry to much. I would just leave it secondary for another week or so and recheck the gravity with a hydrometer.

 

[unionrdr]

The op basically means that his primary lid has no airlock at all. Drill a 3/8" hole in it,& get the airlock & rubber grommets from your LHBS. Install the grommet in the lid,& you can now push an airlock into it. I use cheap grocery store vodka in mine. Anything that gets through the lil holes in the airlock cap die of alcohol poisoning. Unlike water,which will allow the nasties to multiply. And starsan foams up & out.
And no need to re-pitch the yeast. They multiply in the wort when pitched & when their numbers are high enough,you start to see visible fermentation. The time from pitch to visible fermentation is called lag time. The krausen that came out is yeast foam. But there are still plenty of yeast cells in there,so relax.