Late Sunday evening I decided to try and make my first homebrew. It’s been about 30 hours now since I pitched the yeast and there is still no sign of fermentation.
A roommate of mine had all of the supplies and I had watched him do it before. Seemed simple enough, so I bought an IPA kit and set about sanitizing the materials. I meticulously followed all of the instructions while brewing and felt good about my work.
I then poured my wort into the carboy. Unfortunately the strainer that we had been using didn’t catch all of the hop sediment and there is about half an inch of hops on the bottom of the carboy. I’m not sure if this could have created the issue or not.
Finally I pitched the yeast. I firmly sealed the airlock and attached a tube to a fermentation bucket with water at the bottom in case of blow off. I have no idea what my issue is or if I should be concerned, but it was my understanding that I should see signs of fermentation within 24 hours.
What yeast? What temperature did you pitch at? Did you oxygenate the wort before pitching? Those would be the questions that would need answering before solving the riddle…and no, hop trub has no effect on fermentation.
+1. Also, what strain did you pitch and how much ? If a liquid yeast, how old is it and did you make a starter? Also, did you push the bucket lid firmly into place all the way around ? Bucket lids are prone to not always sealing well - it could be fermenting now but show no signs in the airlock.
Don’t worry about the hop sediment. It won’t effect fermentation. It’s very possible the bucket lid doesn’t seal completely causing co2 to escape past the lid instead of going through the airlock. The best way to check for fermentation would be to open the lid and check for krausen. If there is krausen then fermentation is occurring. You could also check the specific gravity to see if it has dropped from the OG.
Answer depends on the yeast (liquid, dry), yeast condition or age, ale strain used, and amount pitched, and temperatures of wort at pitch and since all affect yeast growth. If cold, the yeast could just drop right out of suspension, or if hot, you could have killed them. Neither will ferment…but, I have also underpitched to a cool wort that never looked like it was fermenting, but did, and I had ones go so fast that I never saw it fermenting (but there was the telltale signs of fermentation having happened in the form of a yeast ring).
The fact that you poured your beer through a strainer indicates at least a minimum amount of oxygenation was happening, and a little shake of your beer to rouse the yeast and introduce some oxygen might help right away.
If you haven’t seen something change (even slightly)or start to happen by this afternoon (presumably two full days and a little shake), you may decide to repitch with a yeast that matches your style and ambient temp of ferment.
Welcome to the hobby, adventure, learning curve, obsession!
Its very difficult to not make beer, so relax
Barring something outlandish, like pouring 140º wort into a carboy and immediately pitching, I say give it more time. If you used a liquid pitch like White Labs or Wyeast can you recall what the date was on the package. If its really old you’ll have a problem. But here’s whats probably happening, you didnt get your wort aerated quite enough and you didn’t build up enough lively yeast cells, so its starting really slow. But dont worry, if you have edible sugars in there and yeast that are still alive, it will ferment. 30 hrs with no bubbles is not a reason to panic in your situation.
