Hi guys!
i made yesterday a batch of beer. I sepparated it in to fermenters, i add Saf33 yeast in one of them, and another belgium yeast(for tripels) at the other, both of them powder yeasts.
I rehidratated them well, and then added to my fermentators. 2 hours later both were bubbling really fast, mb a bubble every 3 seconds. The problem is that 8 hours later it stopped, in one of them i aint got bubbles, and in the other every 2 minutes or so. Can you please help me?
thanks!!
My best advice is to relax and give it time. Bubbles in the lock are not a very good indicator of fermentation. Depending on the temp you’re fermenting at and the breed of yeast you can see a big difference in behaviors.
Give both beers a week and then start taking hydrometer readings. It’s entirely possible that most of what needed to happen (at least in terms of eating the simple sugars) could be done in 8 or 10 hours.
The only other thing to check would be if your lock is plugged. By now you’d probably know that though. 
Paul
As noted, 8 hours isn’t a long time.
Don’t know what you are fermenting in but if its buckets you may simply have a poor seal between the lid and the bucket and the CO2 is going out the leak versus the airlock.
Two different yeasts are going to work on a different schedule.
What temperature are you fermenting at? It could just be the seal on the bucket lids. Pop the top and take a look.
Agreed. Ignore the bubbles. If you’re really curious, you could pop the top on the fermenter and take a peek. If you see a layer of krausen on top, you’ve got fermentation going on. Even if the fermentation is done and the krausen has fallen back in, you should still be able to see a “krausen ring” indicating that fermentation happened.
Curious, which method an how much time did you aerate/oxygenate?
The bubbles had come back, but every 2 mins or so.
I aireate using a fish pump, like 10 mins.
The yeast was rehydratated us the package suggested, using wort instead of water.
I think mb the problem was the temperature, because that night was cold and i left the window open :S
I shaked the fermentors and cosed the window. And is i told you the activity came back, but very slow, i dont know if this is normal. Its my firat batch ever.
How cold did it get? some belgian strains like it a little warm but they should be fine down into the low 60’s for sure, probably the upper 50’s even. I am betting on them being more or less done.
you are seeing more activity after shaking them because you have forced co2 out of solution, not necesarily because the there is still fermentation going on.
a note on rehydration. The packets recommend using water because the yeast already have everything they need in reserve to come back to life when put in water, but by putting them in wort you actually cause more stress to the cells than water would, I have heard as much as a 50% die off from tossing dried yeast into wort.
If it’s Belgian, and it’s dry yeast, it’s T-58. I only ferment T-58 at 60*, so I don’t think low temp is the issue. Mort is right about half dying off if not properly rehydrated. I’ve had better results by NOT aerating my wort when using dry yeast and “normal” gravity beers, so I don’t think aeration is the issue either.
Just give it time, and rouse (swirl the bucket to get the yeast up and moving, or stir with a sanitized spoon to get the yeast up.) I had one situation where the yeast got stuck under a layer of cold break, and fermentation wasn’t going until I stirred the bucket really well and got the yeast back in suspension.
+1 to peeking. I don’t use airlocks.
My understanding is that you don’t need oxygen if your pitch is large enough. Generally dry yeast have a large cell count so one pack is enough for a normal strength beer. Not a large beer. You might need two for that without oxygenation. Usually though I’ll still use a drill and paint stirrer to whip some air into the wort before pitching yeast.