Hello all,
On Monday I brewed my first beer (a Private Rye). In the last 24-36 hours, a nice 1"+ krausen has formed, and the beer is moving about quickly. Not many bubbles in the airlock though. A couple questions:
First, the temp in the house has been a little low so the fermometer reads about 60. I know this is low, but it seems like it’s fermenting ok. Is it alright to leave it at this temperature or do I risk it getting stuck?
Next, can I and should I take a gravity reading now? It feels wrong to disturb it when it’s doing all of this important work…
And finally, I filled up the bucket with 5 gallons of sanitizer on brew day and never dumped it. Is this still ok to use or does it lose its effectiveness after a while? It’s the one-step.
What yeast are you using? 60* sounds like it should be right in the temp range of most yeasts, so you should be fine. Most beers take off quickly, then settle down after 3-4 days. You still need to let it set on the yeast as they will continue to clean up after themselves, removing less desirable esters, etc. You might want to warm it up after 2 weeks or so to help finish ferm. (about 70 is ok)
I would not take a grav reading until 2-3 weeks. Let the yeast do their work…they make beer, we watch.
Your sanitizer will be fine as long as it is below 3 on the Ph scale. I’ve kept the same sanitizer for up to 6 months. Keep it in a sealed container out of the sun.
Welcome to homebrewing, let us know how the rye turns out!!
I used the standard dry yeast, I think it’s the US-05?
Thanks for the temp advice, that makes my life a lot easier. I thought I was going to have to get a heater to keep the temp up since it’s a little colder where I’m keeping the fermentor.
I thought that it was strange that there weren’t any bubbles coming out even though it looked very active, so I was able to tighten the screw top (it’s a big mouth bubbler) just a liiiitle bit more, and now it’s cranking out a bubble every couple seconds. Is there any danger that it wasn’t fully sealed before? I can’t imagine anything could have gotten in…
