How much activity to expect when brewing ale?
I’ve just started my first home-brew batch, a real ale. I followed the advice of the person I bought all the equipment from as closely as possible, and I think I did fairly well. How soon after I started should I expect to see gas bubbling through the airlock? And how soon should I expect the large yeasty head to form in the fermentation bin?
Its been a little over an hour and I don’t see much of anything yet in the way of bubbling…its probably too soon. I HOPE its too soon…any advice is appreciated.
Yep, it was dried yeast. I let it rehydrate in water at about 25 celsius for 30 minutes, and the wort was just over 23 degrees when I pitched the yeast. Everything was sterilized and rinsed thoroughly.
The only thing I’m a bit worried about is that for the first hour to hour and a half, I didn’t have any water in the airlock. Pretty dumb, I just fitted it and forgot…
Could you edit with any thoughts on this?
If you used dried yeast, it’s going to take awhile. Do not open the fermenter!!
If your process was sanitary, you have a decent grace period for the yeast to scavenge available O2, progress to anaerobic processes, then start "fermenting" – which will increase alcohol, reduce pH, and create an environment that retards bacterial development.
If you pitched a sufficient amount of yeast, and your wort wasn’t so warm/hot that it killed the yeast off, you should do OK. What was the wort temperature when you pitched (added) the yeast?
If you used dried yeast, it’s going to take awhile. Do not open the fermenter!!
If your process was sanitary, you have a decent grace period for the yeast to scavenge available O2, progress to anaerobic processes, then start "fermenting" – which will increase alcohol, reduce pH, and create an environment that retards bacterial development.
If you pitched a sufficient amount of yeast, and your wort wasn’t so warm/hot that it killed the yeast off, you should do OK. What was the wort temperature when you pitched (added) the yeast?
References :
20+ years brewing, Certified beer judge for the past 9 years
Comment by chasgow — November 8, 2009 @ 5:36 pm
Sounds to me like everything is fine. No water in the airlock isn’t a big deal, and I would doubt that anything would have spoiled the batch in the short time. A good friend of mine uses an open fermenter (no airlock at all) and gets pretty good results. It’s also common to cover the hole with sanitized foil if your fermentation is a little too vigorous. I"ve had an airlock shoot off of a fermenter, with krausen pouring all over before, with no choice, but to take it off.
You should have some airlock action in a couple hours. If I brew at night, I"ll usually have some good activity in the morning. I wouldn’t worry. If 24 hours later nothing is going on, you should consider throwing in another packet of yeast, but for now, just relax.
References :
Comment by whoaeeh — November 8, 2009 @ 5:57 pm