Greetings,
I brewed my first ever Extract brew with my 1 gallon go pro exactly 7 days ago. I am just checking to see if everything seems ok. It’s looked like these photos since the 1st 24 hours and there has been no change since with the top layer or in the airlock, bubbles never actually were coming out. I thought/read everything was supposed to sink to bottom eventually. Am i wrong? There is sediment on the bottom, but the top as you can see still remains.
I thought maybe remove, sanitize and replace the airlock with new water so i can see if anything is still happening?
FYI, this is a Chinook IPA … how am i looking? Thank you in advance.
Looking really good for a seven day old beer. Wait another seven days for your first SG reading and taste. Take another reading a few days later. If your hydrometer sample is clear and without a lot of CO2 bubbles you may be ready to bottle soon after. No rush to bottle though. Being on the yeast cake in the primary will not hurt the beer.
Most of the krausen will fall soon leaving a ring around the top of the beer. CO2 coming out of solution will hold particles of the krausen in suspension. The extra time in the primary will allow the particles to settle out.
Use a Starsan solution or vodka in your airlock. Fruit flies will die before they can swim through.
I agree it looks like it should, but if you don’t have activity in your air lock it must not be sealed to the carboy. Check to make sure it’s tight. Enjoy
Thanks so much … ok, so just wait 3-4 more days and the top layer should start to fall???. I’ll make sure airlock is tight … I used the sanitizing solution to fill it,… should i resanitize and put it back on with vodka?
I have one of those same stoppers. I use it taper end down like a solid stopper. Actually, I don’t ever use it because it’s too sqiushy… Was it actually made to go on the BMB lid like that?
crazy, I never had used anything but water in my air locker… And now I don’t use that either, just a blow off tube at all times…. I am learning patience…. Sneezles61
Yea, the top layer should fall at some point. Most of the time mine has fallen pretty quick, but I did have one yeast strain (don’t remember which) that the top layer stayed for quite some time. Beer was fine though.
Sanitizer or vodka is fine for airlocks, if it’s full of sanitizer now and everything is fine, no need to change it right now. Most of my fermenters are currently plastic, so I have to deal with suck-back, which is part of my preference for vodka. I’d rather have that than sanitizer in my beer. Suck-back doesn’t really happen with glass.
Suck back happens when yer pitched wort is warm and you put it in the fermenting chamber to cool off, also, when cold crshing… I did have a tweezers bent to remove the locker piece when doing these things above Sneezles61
I’ve also had it happen moving plastic containers, there’s enough flex in them to cause it to a minor degree. But I’m not big on the idea of carting glass carboys around all the time and stainless fermenters are beyond my budget at the current time, so… lol
I am really anal when it comes to directions and procedures/details. So I let it ferment another 4 days, and i am checking in with the update.
Little “whatever you call it”, the foam?, is floating on top now. A lot less than before. Since this was a cheap kit, my first brew attempt, i wasn’t instructed or provided the means to take gravity readings. So i won’t know if it’s done with that route.
I guess my question is while over analyzing everything is if the top of beer will be clean and clear or if there will always be something left over floating before i siphon. Think it’s time to try bottling?
The stuff floating on top is called Krausen. It will eventually fall for all yeast but the time it takes is really yeast dependant. You can siphon from under it or you can gently rock your fermenter and it will assist in falling.
Your beer will really be close to bottling when almost all of the surface debris has fallen and the beer is no longer cloudy with suspended yeast. This is about the time for the first specific gravity reading. About day 8 to 12.
Thanks so much for the help Flars and everyone. I will attemp bottleing tomorrow night. Only a little on top, i will gently rock it, let it settle and bottle. its will be 13 days tomorrow night.
I’ve always felt that the 2-3 weeks most recipe kits call for before bottling was a bit soon. I’ve had a few beers end up overcarbed and I don’t think all of them were from too much priming sugar. Of course, I’ve also been a bit lax on taking gravity readings to determine when the beer is “done”. Most of the time I wait 4-8 weeks before bottling, just to be sure the yeast are done with the cleaning up and ready for carbing.
Not what I meant. Day 13 would be about the time to take a specific gravity reading. You would take another gravity reading a few days later. If the two readings are the same then the beer is finished fermenting.
JJRambo, I didn’t start out taking gravity readings eather but you can get a good idea that the yeast is done if the air lock is inactive. That is If you haven’t let the temperature in the Carboy drop below 65.
With all due respect no you can’t. Airlock activity is the last thing you should look for because
fermenters can leak
yeast can start fermenting long before enough CO2 is produced to affect airlock
yeast continues to work LONG after airlock activity stops
Yeast not only produces CO2 and alcohol but it cleans up after its own party. If you take the beer off that yeast too early you’ll be left with off flavors (diacetyl, acetyldyhyde, etc). You are always better off being a day late than a day early when it comes to beer.
Since you won’t be taking a gravity reading you should confirm that it didn’t get too cool. I just had a batch that I thought was ready to bottle but when I checked it had a SG of 1.025. I found that the temperature had dropped to 55 and the yeast had "gone to sleep " . I raised the temperature to 65 and yeast started working for another week
