I brewed my first batch of homebrew on Wednesday 9 Oct at 8pm. (1 gallon Caribou Slobber) I woke up the next morning to find alot of blow off, so I removed the air lock and attached the blowoff hose and put one end inside the cap of the home brew and the other end inside of a cup of sterile water. Later that day the blow off subsided so I replaced the airlock. Since the blow off incident I have noticed no movement inside the fermentation jug. I have kept the wort in a dark closet. How do I know when fermentation is complete, Is it normal for blow off the first couple of hours followed by no bubbles in the air lock?
NB is selling a known defective product. they don’t sell a 5 gallon fermenter for their 5 gallon kits. Why are they selling a 1 gallon fermenter for the 1 gallon kits? Call and ask for a refund or a 2 gallon fermenter to be sent to you free.
How to avoid this in the future? Fermentation temp plays a role in how active fermentation is. It also changes the flavor profile of the finished beer. Your beer with taste much better if you ferment it cool and fermentation will be less active. Low 60’s is perfect.
Your yeast are done eating the sugars and converting them to alcohol. The only way to really tell this is with a hydrometer reading. But you will waste 8oz of beer to take this reading. You are already only getting 7-9 beers, so I don’t want you to waste another bottle.
Let it sit until Sunday. Then bottle it. IMO the best thing to do would be to collect a bunch of the smallest plastic soda bottles you can. Maybe a couple 6pks of 8oz. Or 16’s. Use these to bottle your batch.
Fill the bottle full, then squeeze the O2 out and screw the cap on. As CO2 is produced the bottle will expand. So you won’t be wondering what is happening inside a glass bottle.
Give the bottles a minimum of 2 weeks in the warmest area of your home, 3 would be better. Then 2 days in the fridge before drinking.
I’ve always just sanitized my test jar, thief, and hydrometer and poured it back in when i was done taking a reading. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this?
[quote=“mattnaik”]
I’ve always just sanitized my test jar, thief, and hydrometer and poured it back in when i was done taking a reading. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this?[/quote]
You can not control what is flying around in the air and may land on the surface of the sample. Why risk contaminating a batch of beer by pouring the sample back into the fermenter?
If you are making the 1g kits, they will be drank before there is any problem with fermentation not being over. And using plastic bottles will avoid bottle bombs if you do bottle it early. But if you wait 10-14 days, fermentation being complete is 99.99% a certainty.
