Split into two secondaries, weird things happen

[sakariss]

Hello

New at homebrewing. But I love it.

I wanted to start out with extract brewing, to learn a bit about the process, before moving on to partial mash.
I started out with a pack of Muntons Gold IPA. (the one with 2 cans of extract)
After doing the primary for 7 days, I moved to two smaller secondaries.
The primary fermentor was 30 liters. And the batch size was 23 liters.
The two smaller secondary fermentors were 10 liters each. And i left less than 2 inches of headspace. and sealed them with an airlock. And put them side by side in a 65 degrees room.

However, they are acting differently. One of them is bubbling two bubbles a minute. While the other one shows no activity at all.
I was worried that the one that showed no activity, would have no yeast to make the carbonation during the bottle conditioning. So I added half a cup of sugar, mixed with boiling water and then cooled, to the "dead" secondary.
After 20 hours, it shows no activity.

So my noob questions are :

1. Is one of the secondaries dead, and ready for the drain ?
2. Is it a no-no to split the batch into two secondaries ? ( i did it because I had no bigger secondary)
3. How is this possible ? My theories are a) I overdid the iodophor sanitation on one of the secondary fermentors and killed all the yeast. b) I used a syphon, and all the active yeast was in either the upper or lower part of the primary fermentor. c) It's the sorcery of the beer elves who put an hex on my brew

Unfortunatly, I don't have an Hydrometer yet. So i can't do gravity readings. (I have to get abroad to get one, but will do so in two weeks). I was very thorough with the cleaning and sanitation, so I'm sure that it's not because of bad hygiene ( used dishwasher, then an oxi cleaner, and then iodophor on the smaller buckets, and rinsed them with water in between)

Hope you got some good answers and adivices :rockin:

 

[Foosier]

Bubbles do not equal fermentation. Secondary, if you are going to do it at all, is really meant to be done once fermentation is completed. If fermentation was still on-going you would want to have left it in the primary. That being said, if you trasfered before fermentation was finished, there really would not be any big issues as there is plenty of suspended yeast to finish things up.

The big reason why you might not have bubles in one would likely be a bad seal on the lid of the vessel allowing an easier exit for the CO2. Excess sanitizer will not kill your beer unless you are mixing the beer in a 1-1 ration with sanitizer and I am sure you did not do that.

It is not a non-no to split into 2 secondaries. People do it al the time to use different dry hops on the same batch of beer to see the difference it makes.

Lastly, GET A HYDROMETER. You'll thank me later.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Your second container probably has a leak in the lid that is allowing co2 to escape, bypassing the airlock. Next time before you add sugar, take a SG reading. If they're both the same your yeast is OK. If the second container is truly not attenuating as much, it's also possible it wasn't aerated as much as the first ( yeast use o2 to reproduce during the initial fermentation period)

 

[sakariss]

Thank You
Notes taken

Looking forward to get an hydrometer.

I did some airlock test. and the seal seems to be tight enough.

But the aeartion sounds like a good point. I was very carefull to not do any splashing during the syphoning to one of the tanks ( I forgot that when i did the first secondary)

 

[sakariss]

One thing more I was wondering about..

Should it be safe to bottle and drink ?
If there's no activity in the 2nd fermentor that I added sugar till, then i guess the bottle conditioning and carbonation will be problematic, yes ?

 

[rodwha]

I'd be willing to bet the other is indeed fermenting. There's no real reason for it not to be. I'm inclined to believe it's a seal issue.