A long day?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

peebee

Out of Control
Joined
Aug 15, 2013
Messages
3,532
Reaction score
1,796
Location
North Wales
Maybe I've been up too long?

Brewing today. Nothing too strenuous as it went off fine. Yeast pitched at 4pm, I was quite surprised that the airlock was active by 10pm, though rapid starts aren't without precedence. Checked again before I turned in; airlock is bubbling at about once every two seconds. Maybe I should disengage the airlock in anticipation of a very active ferment? Hadn't got dried "Nottingham" yeast down as an excitable yeast.

Hang-on. This just isn't right...
20180613_000005_WEB.jpg

Explanations please - once you've figured what I'm papping on about.
 
Airlock activity in the wrong direction? No idea why but bet its fixed in 12 hours. Whats the valve its going into?
 
The valve? It's closed, but goes to a pneumatic silencer; my alternative to a "blow-off" tube (there's loads of head space in that fermenter so I don't need a "blow-off" tube - until I started using "West Yorkshire" , aka WY-1469, yeast that is).

Just as you said, it's going right way now. But then it's a new day, tiredness is not playing with my head and the fairies have left my beer alone and gone to bed. And the airlock activity is very sedate, just as I might expect from boring "Nottingham" yeast.
 
A cooling headspace in the fv producing negative pressure...try putting hot water in a milk bottle,let the bottle get hot,tip away then push the opening against your skin and hold there....as the air cools a vacuum is formed pulling your flesh into the bottle....
 
A cooling headspace in the fv producing negative pressure ...
Beer had already been cooled to 19C (from 24C) in the preceding hours, pitching at about 22C, and was stable. The headspace temperature wouldn't have been much different?

Perhaps though, conduction through the fermenter walls (it's stainless steel) from the area in contact with the cooling coils did cause the headspace to cool more than the beer? The cooling liquid would have been about 4C and the fermenter insulated from outside. Bit of a long shot and probably grasping at straws, but could be the beginning of an explanation? Cheers.

But I still think fairies did it.
 
Last edited:
My lager did the same thing. Even once the temp seemed stable it kept switching which way the air pressure was going. Very strange, but once the yeast got going it's been fine.
 
Perhaps it's atmospheric...
Except, you might have noticed, atmospheric pressure is on the slippery slope. Storm "Hector" apparently, though it's tipping over trees a good bit north of here.

I'm beginning to think you don't believe in fairies?

48 hours since pitched and the airlock has been behaving itself for the last 40 of that. Probably close to FG now.
 
Back
Top