So Thursday I brewed a Hefe with 6 lbs of Muntons wheat DME and 1 once of Hallertauer hops in a 60 minute boil. I forgot to cool my wort before adding the additional water but when I added my additional water and went to sanitize my fermenter lid, airlock and brew spoon I came back and took the temp and it was at 67 degrees F so I pitched my yeast at around 5 p.m. and stored my beer in a dark closet. Later that night my airlock was bubbling probably 3-4 times a second or every couple seconds. Yesterday(Friday), I checked my brew a few times through out the day and notice my airlock isn't bubbling. My house thermostat is set at 70 degrees and has not gotten any higher than that in the house because it has been cool. I have not looked in the fermenter bucket yet because I am trying to have patience and not jump the gun. It is now Saturday at 1 a.m. should I be worried?
Bubbles are not a great quantitative indicator of fermentation activity. Your bucket could have a slightly leaky seal, so that when your fermentation was most vigorous, you got bubbling in the airlock, but as it began to wind down, you didn't. But why was it winding down so soon? One possibility is that you pitched your yeast at a higher temperature than you think you did. Your mixed wort/water temp would have depended on how much your wort had cooled (or not) due to ambient air temperature (remember, you're starting at boiling), and how cold (or warm) your top-off water was. My guess is that when you measured 67F, you hadn't thoroughly mixed the top off water with the wort. Yeast love higher temps (up to a point) than is ideal for making beer, and fermentation will go much faster at high temps. My advice would be to wait a week and then take a gravity reading. Then wait 3 days and take another. If they are the same and approximately what you're expecting, the attenuation is done. Also, BTW, 70F is s bit high for an ambient temperature for most yeast strains. Again, the yeast love it, but your beer won't. High fermentation temps can cause higher than desired levels of esters and fusel alcohols. I say this not to make you worry, but for future reference.
I don't think I've ever had a fermentation pail that didn't leak air through the lid. Sometimes the fermentation lock works (especially when fermentation is strong), and others times there's no action in the lock. The lock is reliable with a glass carboy, but not with a fermentation pail.
Ok I got home after reading all your advice. The one thing that you said is that 70 degrees is typically to warm! I couldn't imagine my home being any cooler than that, how do you ferment at cooler tempo without freezing in your home. I feel that i mixed the top off water and wort good enough befoee taking my temp. I stirred with vigor in ordwr to put oxygen in before pitching the yeast. As far as yeast I don't recall the actual amount but is was a standard package of wyeast. I put it in luke warm tap water with a half teaspoon of priming sugar and let it activate before pitching. So I'm sure it is healthy. I took a peak inside the bucket today and too a picture it look like it's doing right but I'll try and put a pic up if I can figure it out, its just confusing me that the airlock is not bubbling it has always bubbled for me before but I have moved since my brew and the bucket did get a little warped so I'm putting money on a not so tight seal. Thanks guys. Once you see the pick let me know if it looks right
Ok I don't know how to add a pick. Lol. But here's a link to my Google Drive. It's the only pic in there. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_ZIXTt3YozFWmtnWlhSeFR4dXc
So when the krausen goes away the yeast has either slowed down a lot or stopped right? I'm not going to start taking gravity readings until at least day 6 and then again on day 8 either which way.
Roughly. But watching the krausen fall is about as reliable as watching bubbles. Yes, gravity is really the best indicator. Some people use chest freezers, controlled by a digital or analog temp controller. I use mostly Johnson A419s. But you can also do it (though less precisely) with cheaper methods. Do searches for "swamp cooler" and "for son of fermentation chiller," for two ideas. I haven't used the latter, but I think some claim it works as well a chest freezer.
This is not the recommended procedure. Unboiled water/sugar has the potential to add wild bacteria. Plus, brewers yeast started with sugar do not adapt well to the maltose in your wort. You really want to start your yeast in a starter made from DME. Unless you left it in the sugar water an extended time my guess is it did very little. Here is Wyeast's take on the subject . . . but even this is over-simplified. Consider measuring your yeast just like you do grain/water/hops. A lot of us on this Forum use yeastcalculator.com. It looks at the date of the yeast, gravity & size of your wort and gives you a target to shoot for. It's a good idea to make a starter for each brew . . . yeast health being just as important as quantity. It's a long read, but these two articles shed a lot of light on starters/pitch-rates: http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php
You mention that you live in a house, so you must not have a basement if you don't have anywhere cooler than where you placed your fermentor? I suggest that you put a thermometer on the floor where the fermentor is located and you might be surprised that the floor is a couple degrees lower than you ambient room temp. However, you should look into some method to ferment in a cooler environment for your future batches, and several methods were mentioned above that are easy to do. Good luck. Oh, and welcome to the BA site, jergar4. Hang around as long as you'd like, and enjoy your time while here.
