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pazandak

pazandak

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I just started brewing.

I made two batches in a glass main fermentor and just made two batches in seperate plastic fermentors from NortherBrewers. The glass ones within 24 hours both showed signs of fermenting, you could see the liquid churning and air lock bubbling. In both of the plastic fermentors nothing seems to have happened. If you press slightly on the lid you can see the water level change in the airlock so i am sure that it is sealed.

Do fermentation process lag on the plastic buckets? or happen less actively?
 
not that I know of....all the batches I've done have been done in plastic carboys and they've started fermenting vigorously within 10 hours. temperatures different?
 
I've noticed that buckets kinda suck in that way. I didn't think that one of my batches was fermenting because of lack of airlock activity. I cracked the lid and took a peak. Couldn't really see much, so I aborted and resealed the lid. The airlock started bubbling. Probably the smallest little area on the lid wasn't sealed, even though I had checked it multiple times.

Moral of the story is dont worry about it. It will ferment. Be worried if you take a gravity reading in three days and it hasn't changed. Gravity changes are the only way to be sure that fermentation has occurred. The airlock is not accurate for that.
 
pazandak said:
I just started brewing.

I made two batches in a glass main fermentor and just made two batches in seperate plastic fermentors from NortherBrewers. The glass ones within 24 hours both showed signs of fermenting, you could see the liquid churning and air lock bubbling. In both of the plastic fermentors nothing seems to have happened. If you press slightly on the lid you can see the water level change in the airlock so i am sure that it is sealed.

Do fermentation process lag on the plastic buckets? or happen less actively?
Click to expand...

Were they the exact same batch kits? Same OG? Same yeast (and amount)? Same pitch temp? Same amount of headspace?

The reason I ask is that all of those factors are going to influence when and how vigorously a fermentation enters the exponential growth phase of the yeast and when the airlock begins bubbling.

I use 6.5 gallon plastic buckets and mine always end up bubbling away merrily well within the first 24 hours.
 
Maybe the buckets aren't sealing well. The beer should still ferment, I can't fathom that a slightly leaky bucket would let yeast or bacteria in, so RDWHAH as far as I can figure.
 
The first two were the white house honey ale extract kit and the Irish Red Ale kit from Norther Brewers

The second was their caribou slobber and a cream ale. The cream ale's temp jumped over night from the 62 the room is to 70 and the water lock is showing pressure now.

The caribou slobber has had nothing going on with it. after 48 hours I pitched a second batch of yeast but still notta. I don't have a hydrometer yet (will buy one soon). I have a feeling the cream ale just really lagged but the caribou slobber seems to be a lost cause.
 
pazandak said:
The first two were the white house honey ale extract kit and the Irish Red Ale kit from Norther Brewers

The second was their caribou slobber and a cream ale. The cream ale's temp jumped over night from the 62 the room is to 70 and the water lock is showing pressure now.

The caribou slobber has had nothing going on with it. after 48 hours I pitched a second batch of yeast but still notta. I don't have a hydrometer yet (will buy one soon). I have a feeling the cream ale just really lagged but the caribou slobber seems to be a lost cause.
Click to expand...

Without a hydro reading, you don't know for for sure whether fermentation is going on or not. It's nice to see the airlock bubble, but lack of that is not a reliable indicator since all it takes is a very tiny leak to let that pressure out.

My suggestion is that you leave the lid on it (repeatedly removing it is not good) and let it be for 3 weeks. During that time, go get a couple hydrometers. If, after the 3 weeks has passed, you get a reading on the Slobber around 1.014 or less, you had fermentation.
 

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