Newbie Fermenting worry

Hi,

I am new to the World of Homebrewing, having read a few books on the subject and forums posts I have opted to start with a nice and easy kit - Ritchies Simply Yorkshire Bitter.

I have followed the instructions to the letter and made sure all of the santisation was maticuliously carried out to ensure there was no bacteria from the outset.

Once completed at 11pm on Monday night (2nd Jan) I moved my FV to my garage which is integral to the house and set the immersion heater to 22 degrees which the wort has been stable at since.

I am a little concerned that as yet I have seen no bubbling activity in the airlock as yet but wondering if my lid is not making a tight enough seal - I have since taped the lid to the bucket with electrical tape to see if that will start bubbling activity!

Before I taped the lid shut I took the following picture inside the FV, there is a beer smell coming from the wort and it looks like there is a slight fizzing happening but I am worried that maybe fermentation is not happening as it should.:-?

Can anyone advise if the picture in the attachment is how the wort should look after 48hrs and also I wish to dry hop with Fuggles Pellets - when would it be best to do this?

Thanks in advance and hope my wort is healthly fermenting

Looks fine to me :thumb:
Put the lid back, and then ignore the fact that the airlock isnt bubbling.
Leave it for about 10-12 days, and then have another peak inside. You should see that the krausen (foam) has died back and it may be starting to clear. Take an SG reading and if its about 1.010 its more or less finished fermenting and you can add your hops.
Leave the hops in for about four days, and keep the lid on. Then take another SG reading and then one the following day and you should find they are the same. If they are you can go ahead and bottle. If not leave it two more days and try again and when the readings are the same you can bottle.
For dry hopping decide whether you are going to use a bag to contain the hops or just chuck em in. If latter you may need to think about whether you are prepared for hop bits being a carried forward or if you need to filter out using a 'sock' over your siphon tube.

As above 👍🍺

Sent from my ALE-L21

Ditto, my air lock rarely bubbles, too much lid leakage.

I am a little concerned that as yet I have seen no bubbling activity in the airlock

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Try putting a heavy weight in the centre of the lid, a bag of sugar or something similar.

Thanks all I feel better to know it is all going as expected!!

So should I not put the hop pellets in until fermentation is complete? I was going to add them either tonight or tomorrow so they can be in their for a good length of time.

I have a Muslim bag to put them in - should I sanitise it in boiling water?

Chippy_Tea said:

Try putting a heavy weight in the centre of the lid, a bag of sugar or something similar.

Click to expand...

If I push on the lid I get bubbling in the airlock!!

andywilde16 said:

Thanks all I feel better to know it is all going as expected!!

So should I not put the hop pellets in until fermentation is complete? I was going to add them either tonight or tomorrow so they can be in their for a good length of time.

I have a Muslim bag to put them in - should I sanitise it in boiling water?

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Just chuck the pellets in for about 4/5 days and leave it,if you want you can put a sanitised muslin bag in with the pellets inside, but also put a sanitised t spoon in the bag to help it sink,but it's best to just chuck em in,used the muscling bag to put over your syphon when racking.

I have a FV that is airtight and a cheaper one that isn't if i put a heavy weight in the middle of the lid the airlock bubbles as i guess the weight pulls the lid down onto the bucket forcing it to make a better seal on the edge, give it a try you have nothing to lose. :thumb:

So can I put the pellets in with the wort still fermenting or do I have to wait until fermentation is complete?

andywilde16 said:

Thanks all I feel better to know it is all going as expected!!

So should I not put the hop pellets in until fermentation is complete? I was going to add them either tonight or tomorrow so they can be in their for a good length of time.

I have a Muslim bag to put them in - should I sanitise it in boiling water?

Click to expand...

Andy if your dry hopping wait until your two week fermention is up , rack into another bucket off the yeast add the hops then seal and leave two weeks then bottle .. its not a Muslim bag mate its Muslin

andywilde16 said:

So can I put the pellets in with the wort still fermenting or do I have to wait until fermentation is complete?

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The reason you don't usually do the dry hop whilst the primary is on the go is because the CO2 evolved will slowly strip out some of the volatile hop oils you want to retain in your brew. That's why its better to leave it until the fermentation has all but finished before you add the hops.
If you use a muslin bag, boiling it for a few minutes to sanitise is fine. And a few heavy items of sanitised SS cutlery added to the bag is useful since they will cause the bag to sink because an unweighted bag will do its best to float.
Leaving the hops in for longer than about 7 days is said to introduce unwanted flavours. That's why I personally avoid doing it.

Tanzanite said:

Andy if your dry hopping wait until your two week fermention is up , rack into another bucket off the yeast add the hops then seal and leave two weeks then bottle .. its not a Muslim bag mate its Muslin

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I do not have a 2nd bucket so I will have to go with the Muslin bag....Opps damn predictive text on my mobile! :hmm:

andywilde16 said:

I do not have a 2nd bucket so I will have to go with the Muslin bag....Opps damn predictive text on my mobile! :hmm:

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andy you need another bucket one for brewing and one for secondary, you take the brew off the yeast into a clean sterilized bucket dry hop seal leave your beer to clean relax and hop for two weeks. (this lets your beer clear and a lot of yeast drop out of suspension so your bottling a very clean beer) then bottle and leave warm for two weeks,:thumb: then condition cold for ten weeks. while your beer is in the secondary bucket with hops you can have another brew fermenting.

andywilde16 said:

If I push on the lid I get bubbling in the airlock!!

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Well, yes, you will! The reason is that, if you push the lid down, then you're squeezing a fairly large volume of gas pretty quickly - so it will escape through the airlock even if there is leakage around the lid as well.
By contrast, fermentation results in a slower, but more constant, production of gas. Unless you have an absolutely gas-tight seal on your FV lid then the CO2 is likely to seep out through the edges of lid and not cause the airlock to bubble. Mind you, there is still likely to be a higher than atmospheric pressure in the FV - so even this is not enough to cause bubbling, you should still see a difference in water level between the FV and atmosphere sides of the airlock.

Tanzanite said:

andy you need another bucket one for brewing and one for secondary, you take the brew off the yeast into a clean sterilized bucket dry hop seal leave your beer to clean relax and hop for two weeks. (this lets your beer clear and a lot of yeast drop out of suspension so your bottling a very clean beer) then bottle and leave warm for two weeks,:thumb: then condition cold for ten weeks. while your beer is in the secondary bucket with hops you can have another brew fermenting.

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I was planning on secondary fermenting in the bottles!

Would it cause an issue if I added the hops towards the end of the fermentation into the one bucket?

andywilde16 said:

Would it cause an issue if I added the hops towards the end of the fermentation into the one bucket?

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You certainly can do that, but dry hopping will be more effective the later you leave it - more aroma will be retained. There are lots of different ways to brew, and few hard-and-fast rules. Much depends upon how desperate you are to drink your beer quickly, as opposed to how keen you are to brew really good beer!
For me, if you're going to go to the trouble of bottling it (as opposed to a plastic barrel), then its worth waiting a bit longer for the beer to mature.
I'd certainly recommend a secondary FV - or a plastic drum. My thoughts would be:
10 days or more in the primary FV, by which time fermentation should be all but complete.
Another 10 days to 2 weeks in secondary. This allows 3 things. The beer is removed from the initial deposits of dead/dying yeast and other fallout which won't help the flavour at all. The remaining live yeast in suspension has a beneficial effect upon beer quality by re-absorbing compounds, "cleaning up" the beer. Thirdly, after 3, preferably 4 or more, weeks in FV there will be less sediment in your bottles, your beer will store better and be much easier to pour.

andywilde16 said:

I was planning on secondary fermenting in the bottles!

Would it cause an issue if I added the hops towards the end of the fermentation into the one bucket?

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Hehe To avoid confusion.. The optional use of a secondary fermentor or bright tank is one thing

the secondary fermentation stimulated by a priming charge in the bottle or keg is another. there may be some discussion on this and some may suggest when using a bright tank or secondary FV then you can label the bottle/keg conditioning tertiary fermentation, but imho its simpler to refer to the 'secondary/tertiary' fizz providing fermentation in the bottle or keg as 'natural conditioning'

Also some of us are a tad wary of employing a secondary fermentation vessel. the reason being that an extra transfer of the beer can expose it to ?significantly? more risk of contamination from airborne microlife or a slip up in cleaning and sanitation of the equipment etc.. Brewing is after all basically a numbers game where we stack the odds in our favour by pitching a huge population of our selected microlife (yeast) in the hope it will out eat and grow any other life form that gained access while the lid was off..However not all microlife competes with yeast and some can still spoil a fermented alcohol containing batch.. Personally I tend not to use a 2ndary FV however some find the benefit of racking off the initial yeast cake helps towards a clearer pint..



So No, No problem at all adding your dry hop addition to the 'primary fermentor' without racking off into a bright tank first.

as long as you wet all the pellet hops by mixing in with a sterile spoon when you add em they will become saturated and sink along with the most of the yeast matter in the brew so no need to bag em Flower hops are best bagged as they are more difficult to saturate, and can float regardless.

Hi andywilde16 I'm new to homebrewing started a Coopers English bitter on 02nd Jan do you watch YouTube? Craigtube is a great place to learn ( in my opinion ) spent hours watching him. Made my kit with out reading any of the info from Coopers all down to watching clips on how too. He as one about adding hops to fv should look it up. Happy brewing 😊

For the benefit of any newbies reading this thread...
One FV for the primary fermentation is obviously necessary.
Racking off the trub at the end of the vigorous part of the primary into a second FV is optional for a continuation of the fermentation process, and not essential. There are good arguments both for and against. So some folks do it, others don't. I just happen to be one of the group that does it.