heya, on Friday, i brewed a lambic. I let it cool overnight and, in the morning, i pitched a vial of ECY01 BugFarm that i bought 3 months ago. I had it shipped to Buffalo (in an ice pack, i believe). had it in my car for the day. it was below freezing outside, so that kept it cold. put it in the fridge when i got home. so, i aerated my lambic. shakeyshakeyshake. 3 hrs later, i pitch BugFarm, when it is at room temp. a day goes by. no airlock activity. no problem. next day, no airlock activity. hrm. so i agitate/shake my bucket and leave it go. later that day, still nothing. so i take out my thermometer and check the bucket/air temp. yikes. cold snap in Toronto, but had no idea that my basement was only in the high 50s. so, my fault. yesterday, after lunch, i move it upstairs, where it is in the mid to upper 60s. i shake it, take a spoon and mix it well. now, 24 hrs later, i am still not seeing any airlock activity. the only positive? the fluid in my s-shaped airlock's migrated to the proper side i.e. there's air that may have come out of the bucket. or...it may have moved from my shaking. the lambic had 2 oz of stale hallertau in it. so not totally panicking about infection. i'm more worried that somehow, with mailing, storage, etc, that my sacch in BugFarm has bit the farm. as i type this, the bucket just let out a big glurp. but yeah, nowhere near where i'd expect fermentation to be, even if it was in sub-optimal temps for 2 days. so...anyone with experience with BugFarm? just leave it be? or consider getting some sort of sacch strain? or is it too late? halp?
Brewed a 5.5 gal batch of lambic back in September of last year and pitched one vial of ECY01. Took 9 days to hit high krausen. This was at a low 60s ambient temp. My guess is that the amount of Sacc in ECY01 is super low to emulate the yeast numbers you would see if you had openly innoculated/coolshipped your wort. Again, that is just a "wild" guess.
no, for a number of reasons. one would be that...i didn't think of that. but really, there is nothing visible to show fermentation. airlock activity is nil. looks like wort with zero sign of pellicle or krausen. and I don't want to lose some of my precious wort to a sample. but i am now getting some burping (once every 2 min?) from the airlock. so there is hope. that's the shit i want to see. glad to see that i'm not solo. you've given me hope, my friend.
I brewed a wild/sour recently using ECY20. It took about 2 or so days to finally show signs of fermentation. The vial was probably 3 months old (stored in my fridge the whole time) at time of pitching. It was never really that vigorous of a fermentation. My notes are here if you want http://fermentologist.blogspot.com/2014/03/yearly-sourwild-ale-second-year.html I've had beers take longer to show signs of fermentation using pure Brett cultures (even after I made a starter) and using dregs + sacc.
I'm about to blow out a sour with ECY01 and maybe some 1968 alongside with it, both pitched at the start.
I've fermented a few carboys with this years ECY01 (1 bottle per 5 gallons, each bottle about 6 weeks old) recently and hit high krausen in about 40 hours from pitch. Wort temperature was at 68F.
