On Sunday I brewed an American Amber. There was a lot of foam (as usual) after aerating the wort in the carboy with the degaser & drill. OG 1.060 Pitched 2 packs of S-05 dry on top of the foam. I'm just now (almost 48 hrs) seeing some krausen. But no CO2 activity from the blow off. I know CO2 is not the most reliable indicator, but this seems really slow and laggy. I can't help but to regret not re-hydrating like I have in the past.
Temp may be a factor? I pitched at about 64.5, and set it to 60. And if you go to the web site, they say it should be pitched when wort it above 68. Should I expect anything weird from this batch? Off flavors?
s-05 works for me in the high 50s. Pitching at 64 hasn't been a problem. Your beer should turn out fine.
If you're seeing krausen then you have nothing to worry about. I'll take krausen over no co2 activity rather than a bunch of co2 activity and no krausen. You probably just have a leak.
I don't think there are any surprises here. You sprinkled dry yeast on top of not-liquid-wort. Eventually yeast met liquid and now you're seeing krausen. I bet you'll be seeing bubbles soon. Do not count them. ETA: It sounds like rehydrating would have been better, but for a different reason than generally given.
I am lazy and do not hydrate my dry yeast. I will only use one packet of dry yeast sprinkle on top of the wort then use my stir paddle in my drill motor to aerate. I have active fermentation within 24 hours. Your beer will be fine. Take care.
Just wanted to follow up. The beer did start active fermentation slowly, and had a nice amount of krausen as you can see in the pic (I also wanted to see how good the camera on my Nexus5x would be in low light). Probably let it sit for another week and a half and x-fer to keg.
As a follow up, I did a taste and hydrometer test before staring a cold crash today. Gravity ended pretty much where it was supposed to be. Tastes good. Unfortunately, it may be the last batch I brew for a while.
Worst I've had was a lag of 5 days, and the finished product was perfectly fine. I do think that people worry a tad too much about lag time. If your sanitation is up to scratch, then unlikely to have any issues.
I have a similar situation going on right now with my first homebrew batch ever, an Irish red ale (1-gallon kit from Northern Brewers). I brewed on Saturday and by Monday morning things were looking great - a nice head of krausen with burping every 2-3 seconds. By Monday night things had slowed down considerably (not much krausen, burping every 8-10 seconds) and this morning things almost appear to be at a standstill. There have been no significant temperature changes in the dark closet where I've been keeping the carboy. Any ideas on what is happening or whether I should be concerned? (Let me know if any additional info would be helpful - as I said, this is my first time brewing!)
Good to know. I'll be out of town from tonight through Sunday so hopefully things go well between now and then. Thanks!
I just brewed a brown ale that was quite laggy with Nottingham yeast... I think just over 50hrs or so it finally started to show some signs of life. It has been chugging along since... Pitched and fermenting at 60F, so that may have some influence on it.
