just finished clean up of a cream ale i brewed this am. was wondering about how long it takes to see my airlock start bubbling. this was a partial boil with powder extract. when i finished cooling the wort and tranfered it into my primary there was alot of crud on the bottom of the boil pot. i discarded all the crap and pitched the yeast at 70 degrees. my question is should i have put all the leftover crud in my primary…thanks …rob
In general, it is recommended to throw away the crud and not get much of it in the fermentor. If some does get in though, it probably won’t make much if any difference.
Depending on how healthy the yeast is you should see activity by this this evening/night. Congrats on your first homebrew. Its fairly easy isn’t it? 
as long as you follow directions to the “t” there shouldnt be a problem. was great sitting in my garage at 3:ooam brewing with the tunes on and coffee flowing and nobody bothered me that was the greatest. thanks for all your help everyone…rob
Couple things…that will affect our ability to answer your original question…
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What was your starting gravity? If it was above 1.045 or 1.5, did you make a starter? Dry or liquid yeast?
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Did you aerate you wort properly? This affects how fast liquid yeast takes off
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Is the lid air tight on your fermentor? If not you may never see bubbles, but it is fermenting fine
Also, if you pitched as 70*, are you cooling it down for the primary fermentation? That temp will make it start fermenting faster but that is not the goal, good beer is. 70* is way too warm for primary fermentation as the temps could climb 4-6 degrees internally when it becomes active.
I thought you only needed a starter for 1.060 and above ? I just did the slobber which is what 1.052 and the airlock has been bubbling away since Sunday night nicely. A good amount out the blowoff tube too by Monday night. I used Wyeast Northwest yeast and a yeast nutrient.
It would depend on the age of the yeast, either from the supplier or your harvest. Since I am using harvested yeast for about 80% of my brews, I am just in the habit of doing starters now
Dry or liquid? Most of the time I have a 8 to 12 hour lag time unless I use slurry from a batch I just fermented on. When I first started brewing, using dry yeast, 24 to 36 hours was not uncommon. I always try to get my wort down to, or just under, the fermrntion temp. Just got done bottling a cream ale this morning using dry yeast and it turned out goooood! Good luck!
my starting gravity was fine and my wort was airated for about 2-3 minutes. as far as pitching the yeast the kit directions said at 70 degrees pitch the yeast so i did. could 70 be to high? i also use an airtight lid on my bucket with an airlock
You might try keep the temp below 70, mid 60s would probably be better, and maybe even a few degrees lower if it really takes off.
There is a lot of good suggestions here for ways to improve things, but for the first brew I wouldn’t worry so much. Focus on the basics: You followed the directions and made good wort. You sanitized all your equipment so it wouldn’t get infected. You pitched a good quantity of yeast and are keeping the temperature in the ball park. Now comes the hardest part: waiting until the yeast is done before you bottle. That will be take 2-3 weeks, and depends on a lot of factors. But if you just leave the bucket for three weeks (I wouldn’t worry about using a secondary), it will be ready to siphon into your bottling bucket with some priming sugar to bottle.
ok this is starting to piss me off! no movement from the airlock and no signs of activity from my primary at all. question is , should i reairate and pitch more yeast or call it a total flub and trash it and start over…thanks rob
ok this is starting to piss me off! no movement from the airlock and no signs of activity from my primary at all. question is , should i reairate and pitch more yeast or call it a total flub and trash it and start over…thanks rob
Do not do that. Relax, try to forget about it for the night. Put it in a 64-66* room if possible. Definilty to not reareate, no need to re pitch. This is the hardest part of homebrewing, waiting for signs of life.
Did you use dry yeast or the NW1135 liquid?
used dry yeast it is in my garage and i know it is somewhere around 60-64 in there. the kit i used might have been old, does yeast lose it shizzy after a while
The dry yeast would have to be quite old in my own experience. Like I said try to not check on it tonight then report back to us tomorrow morning.
ok guys, it looks like i have some life, the airlock is bubbling pretty good. i was so used to making wine and in my wine processing days it was always almost within 24hrs the fermentation would start. i guess being a newbie i got excited and thought i made a mistake somewhere but i guess it is all different with beer. thanks for your patience and all the knowledge you all have given me…thanks again…rob
Brings back memories of my first few batches. Constant worry. Now I just relax and have a home brew. That makes everything better.
Ahh yeahh. " I remember my first Krabby Patty!"
