New to Brewing Q

12 hours is way too early to be concerned. If there's no sign of activity in a couple days, check back here.

BTW, for most ale strains, and ambient temp of 62-64 is fine.

And the water in your blow-off container going back up the tube is due to a change in pressure. Nothing to really worry about unless it keeps going all the way to the fermenter. (ETA: It's a good idea to keep the blow-off container lower than the fermenter.)

 

Hi, Amy. One of the more common bits of advice given to new brewers is that of patience - it will work out in the end. But a few things first:
- What was the temperature of the wort when you added the yeast? Did you cool the wort first?
- Is there a date on the yeast packet? We should be able to estimate viability.

Low 60's ambient is a little cool for an ale yeast. But I don't think that is too cold to prevent it from starting. Note that active fermentation will increase the internal temperature above ambient by a few degrees.

The exhaust tube you reference is an airlock. It should be sanitized before use and ideally it is filled with something offensive to bugs. I use star-san (diluted per instructions), but others may use vodka.

12 hours is a slow start, but you might not see much until about 24hr in many cases. You can certainly try to repitch after that.

 

Hmmm... now I'm not sure what I read...
@AmyS... the "glass" you referred to. Is it actually a glass, or is it an airlock sitting on top of your fermenter?

 

Welcome to the BA site and to the Homebrewing forum, Amy. We're glad that you're here.

The advice above is all good. You started fermentation with a cool ambient temp and an unknown age of the yeast (yeast packets in kits are typically not very fresh), so those are two factors that usually lead to a slow start. If you get your house temp up just a degree or two, that will help. Of if your fermentor is sitting on a floor, raising it to a table height will likely get you a couple of degrees.

 

If you can get some fresh yeast, go ahead and do so, BUT don't add it until you see what happens with your current batch. It may still take off and then you won't need the new yeast. Adding fresh yeast after 48 hours may be what you'll have to do to get this batch going. What style of beer are you brewing? That can help determine what type of new yeast you add.

P.S. Since you are new to brewing, I'll recommend that you read John Palmer's book, HowToBrew.com which is free to read online. You could also purchase the newest edition for less that $20 at good bookstores or online so that you'll have something to highlight, write notes, etc. It's a very good read that probably all of us here in this forum have read, and you'd hear that recommendation from others here too.

 

If you don't see any activity 24 hours after raising the temps, I'd go ahead and pitch more yeast.

 

Welcome to the forum, AmyS. I suspect your worry is premature, as others have suggested. However, it would be worth sourcing some dry yeast if you don't have any on hand. After 48 hours, I would consider adding more yeast.

 

The generally-accepted procedure nowadays is to dry hop in your primary rather than using a secondary regardless of what your recipe says. It saves extra work and the potential exposure to an oxidation accident. Just choose your hops and put them into your primary. If you have a hop sack that will make it easier to remove them when it's time to bottle, but the bag is not necessary. You'll just siphon the beer from a level above the trub when you go to bottling.

EDIT: But wait until fermentation is done or nearly done before dry-hopping.

As for the coffee infusion, I have not done it before but I think most homebrewers cold brew a coffee bean with a flavor that they like and add that a little at a time to the bottling bucket until you get the desire flavor, and then proceed to bottling.

 

If you want to dry hop, follow what I said above. However, if you removed the hops from your wort and feel that will lessen the hop flavor, don't worry about that. The hops have done their job during the boil. It is standard procedure to siphon the wort from above the hop trub when you transfer to the bottling bucket, so it is okay if you scooped that stuff out already. If you choose to dry hop, then just follow what I wrote above.

 

@Mothergoose03 gave you some good advice about dry-hopping in the primary. But even if you were to do this in a secondary fermenter, there would be no reason to add dextrose. The hop oils will get suspended/distributed in the beer through Brownian motion (and probably other effects) that have nothing to do with fermentation per se.

BTW, when people talk about "doing a secondary," they are usually talking about moving already fermented beer to another container for conditioning, and not about actually having another fermentation happen.

 

I very recently had the same experience with a mead. The threat posed by the imminent arrival of fresh yeast seems to coax activity of the seemingly stalled yeast. Scientific fact. Pretty sure.

 

Just throw a tablespoon or two of fresh beans in for a blonde. I use 1/2 lb for 5 gallons of ris. The only reason to use dextrose would be to dry it out which could make sense depending what kind of beer kit you’re working with