yeast is too slow?

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tom_gamer

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Every time I brew beer or anything at all I usually get a very active fermentation. This time around I only get the occational bubble. Its been about 5 days now, still going weak lol.

This time I changed many thing so its not one thing. What I believe it was is that I used dry yeast for the first time and hydrated it. I had the water under 100 degrees and the wort may have been about 80 degrees when I pitched. Does this seem like problem?

Thanks ahead
 
Unless you took a specific gravity at the beginning and a SG reading 5 days post pitching no one knows what's really going on.
 
However, with a dry yeast pitched at 80F, I suspect the fermentation was complete by the first morning. Hot fermentations can produce some nasty byproducts.

Is/was there a krausen?
What is the gravity?
 
MuchoGusto said:
Unless you took a specific gravity at the beginning and a SG reading 5 days post pitching no one knows what's really going on.

Exactly.

An airlock is not a good indicator of fermentation activity: it won't bubble if gas is escaping some other way and it can even bubble well after fermentation is completed if you move or accidentally kick the fermentation vessel thus releasing CO2 from solution.

Gravity readings are the only sure-fire way of knowing what's going on.
 
Re-hydrating dry yeast usually gets things going pretty quick,so initial fermentation is likely done. I usually re-hydrate at 70-75F,& chill the wort down to 65-70F. Use a hydrometer to know for sure what's going on. But the higher temps may've stressed the yeast a bit. So make sure to give it 3-7 days after FG is reached to clean up off flavors & settle out more.
 
I did take a hydro reading in the beginning, and tomorrow I'm planning on taking another. I just thought it was weird that this time it seemed so slow compared to all the other times.

Do you think it is necessary to rehydrate dry yeast? It was US-05 and it didn't say you had to on the package.
 
I did take a hydro reading in the beginning, and tomorrow I'm planning on taking another.
But what I'm trying to say is you should have taken one before you re-pitched. If it was anything lower than your original gravity then you would know fermentation had occurred.

I just thought it was weird that this time it seemed so slow compared to all the other times.
How do you know it was slow? Without a gravity reading you have no idea how fast the fermentation is.

Do you think it is necessary to rehydrate dry yeast? It was US-05 and it didn't say you had to on the package.
People will argue for or against rehydration. Either way works, so try both and make the judgement for yourself.
 
Slow bubbling does not mean anything important. When you take your next gravity readings you will know.

You don't need to re-hydrate dry yeast but most say it is better.

I had one that was still bubbling as I was putting it into the bottles. The fg was 1.010 by the recipe and 1.008 by my measurement.
 
Re-hydrated yeast starts faster,especially with the smaller yeast packets. But either way will work. The bigger yeast packets (11g-15g) start quicker due to sheer volume. The small 5g-7g packets need to be re-hydrated to start as quick or a hair quicker than the larger packets.
My wife & I did this experiment once. She made a shock top clone,I made my APA. Hers used the 11.5g US-05 fermentis,I used the cooper's 7g ale yeast re-hydrated in 1.5C boiled/cooled water with 1tsp dextrose. They both visibly started at virtually the same time.
So small packets benefit from re-hydration due to low yeast volume,& high comparitive wort volume. Seems to me if the larger packets were re-hydrated,it's be virtually the same as a fair size starter. My 2c worth...:mug:
 
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