ShorelineThomas
Active Member
That something happened!
Newbie brewer here, on his first-ever batch...partial boil, partial mash. A "Red" ale. Very simple recipe. (With all the various pots and pans going, some boiling, some chilling in the fridge, I'm thinking this first time out--using insufficient equipment--will be harder than my next boil, my first full boil, that I'll do in a few weeks when the larger pot and wort chiller arrive in the post. But I digress.)
I think I did all the steps adequately well. But, when I pitched the yeast into the cooled wort, I'm guessing both were at about 82F. Probably too high! I started to worry when one hour went by and still the temperature (fermometer) was off the scale (it only goes to 78-ish). But then at hour 2, after moving the fermentation bucket to the cool, 65F basement, the temp was now solidly at 78.
An hour later, at hour 3, I checked it again. Temp about 77. I now looked at the airlock. Gulp...it was apparently sucking, not blowing. The volume of liquid must have cooled to the point where it was pulling in the water (actually star-san dilution). I don't think it pulled any into the fermenter, but the interior level was greater than the exterior level, so clearly there was a vacuum in the fermenter. I was staring at it, pondering. Oh dear. Hmmm.... Then,
BLURP
A puff of gas from inside, turning that vacuum into outward pressure! It was awesome that I happened to be there at that very moment, when the flow reversed. What a puff of reassurance! So maybe the yeast isn't dead, or shocked terminally, or whatever.
Now, I'm still thinking 76-77 is a bit high for start of fermentation, from what I read here, but I've little choice. I'll keep this in the 65F basement and hope it finds a nice low equlibrium temperature. I wonder if this first 3 hours of "too hot" will make the brew taste funny (assuming everything comes out well)?!
Well, we'll see. Thanks for the excellent posts all...
Newbie brewer here, on his first-ever batch...partial boil, partial mash. A "Red" ale. Very simple recipe. (With all the various pots and pans going, some boiling, some chilling in the fridge, I'm thinking this first time out--using insufficient equipment--will be harder than my next boil, my first full boil, that I'll do in a few weeks when the larger pot and wort chiller arrive in the post. But I digress.)
I think I did all the steps adequately well. But, when I pitched the yeast into the cooled wort, I'm guessing both were at about 82F. Probably too high! I started to worry when one hour went by and still the temperature (fermometer) was off the scale (it only goes to 78-ish). But then at hour 2, after moving the fermentation bucket to the cool, 65F basement, the temp was now solidly at 78.
An hour later, at hour 3, I checked it again. Temp about 77. I now looked at the airlock. Gulp...it was apparently sucking, not blowing. The volume of liquid must have cooled to the point where it was pulling in the water (actually star-san dilution). I don't think it pulled any into the fermenter, but the interior level was greater than the exterior level, so clearly there was a vacuum in the fermenter. I was staring at it, pondering. Oh dear. Hmmm.... Then,
BLURP
A puff of gas from inside, turning that vacuum into outward pressure! It was awesome that I happened to be there at that very moment, when the flow reversed. What a puff of reassurance! So maybe the yeast isn't dead, or shocked terminally, or whatever.
Now, I'm still thinking 76-77 is a bit high for start of fermentation, from what I read here, but I've little choice. I'll keep this in the 65F basement and hope it finds a nice low equlibrium temperature. I wonder if this first 3 hours of "too hot" will make the brew taste funny (assuming everything comes out well)?!
Well, we'll see. Thanks for the excellent posts all...
