# What's Happening!



## athomas550 (26/5/11)

Hi guys,

Made my first batch of JAO!

Date: Tuesday 3 May 2011
Ambient: Sunny +- 25 degrees C
Poured 'Misty Mountain' spring water to the level of 3.8litre, marked level. Returned water to container.
Placed honey containers in warm water to flow easier. Mixed honey in jug, poured mixture into demi-john.
Topped up demi-john contents with spring water to the previously marked level.
Used one teaspoon of 'TADACO' bread yeast - put into demi-john at 12.45pm.
Yeast starts to react at 1.00pm blip...blip...blip

It has been going along great, now I notice that the blip, blip, blip has stopped. There are still tiny bubbles rising to the surface, but that is it. Is this how it is or ........

Your opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks


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## Bizier (26/5/11)

Tiny bubbles mean CO2 escaping, and yeast still working, which merely means your airlock has malfunctioned. It is a device originally designed by large breweries to scare newcomers out of homebrewing by continually revealing that your ferment vessel is not entirely sealed*. So long as there is positive pressure. Insects aside, no spoilage organism I have heard of is capably of flying against the CO2 wind into your brew.

Chill the F_ out and have a beverage of choice. It will be fine.

* may not actually be fact.

ED: And search for "airlock"


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## KudaPucat (27/5/11)

25 days is not unusual for airlocks to stop completely.
Bubbles on the surface if not breaking, could just be sitting there.
If they are rising, at this point, it's not unusual for a blip every 5 minutes or even longer.
Have no fear, sit on it until it clears and or the fruit falls.
She'll be apples, or orange anyhow.
Enjoy


I'm a little nervous, as one of mine has stopped and cleared after only 15 days... I've never seen that happen before.


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## pdilley (27/5/11)

All should be well. When the fermentation nears the end, there will be a dramatic reduction in the production of CO2 gas to make any airlock go bloop. Residual CO2 will be trapped in the yeast cake at the bottom of the fermentation vessel and will slowly work its way out and rise to the top. This is normal as well. Also the cause of dancing raisin syndrome where your fruit drops and then floats and then drops again as it picks up the CO2 trapped in the cake at the bottom.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## athomas550 (30/5/11)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies and as you predicted, all the floaters have sunk to the bottom except 'ONE RAISIN', there are still bubbles coming to the surface! Will continue to keep and eye, see what happens.

Thanks again,

athomas550


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## athomas550 (2/6/11)

athomas550 said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> Thanks for the replies and as you predicted, all the floaters have sunk to the bottom except 'ONE RAISIN', there are still bubbles coming to the surface! Will continue to keep and eye, see what happens.
> 
> ...


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## athomas550 (26/6/11)

Hi guys,

Finally been able to take the brew from the demi-john! Not being sure, I decanted it out of the original into a clean demi-john.

Everything had settled to the bottom, there was no activity from the airlock (the water levels were the same on both side of the airlock) and there was a distinct cake at the bottom of the demi-john. Decanted the light brew into the other demi, ensuring that non of the stuff at the bottom transferred over. 

The brew has a distinctive citrus smell and the first taste, I was able to discern a slight citrus flavor. Could not detect either the cloves or the cinnamon flavor, disappointing! The brew is a golden color, no haze but not quite as clear as others have described theirs, I'll give it more time. It does have a sweetish flavor, not unpleasantly so, you could have a couple of mouthfuls, without it getting sickly. The alcohol level, (I forgot to take an initial SG. but the final was 0.55), you could feel the alcohol level, like drinking a good scotch, you feel it, but it does not burn the throat as it goes down, but you get that warm feeling in the stomach.

The hydrometer I bought the other day is graduated, indicating the amount of sugar by volume and also the percentage 
alcohol by volume. How much credence can you can you give these scales as we are not making wine.

Beyond that, I am quite happy with my first try and am going to put down the next batch shortly!

athpmas550


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## KudaPucat (27/6/11)

athomas550 said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Wine is the same as any alcohol when sugar \by vol abd alc by vol are concerned. Except that the factor they use varies with the expected ABV, for wine and mead it's roughly the same 130-135

IMHO if your hydrometer does not have unite of specific gravity, take it back and swap it for one that does. This is the only scale I read, because it's the only one that isn't based on calculations or approximations, and even though it's the most complex, it leads to less errors and misunderstandings than the two scales you mentioned. But YMMV
Hopefully


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## Phoney (27/6/11)

Mine came out a little bit sickly sweet with a slight flavour of over-ripened oranges. Drinkable with the first mouthful but you don't feel like taking another sip.

Don't know if that's what it's supposed to taste like or I stuffed up somewhere, but I doubt I'd ever make it again.


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## Greg.L (27/6/11)

KudaPucat said:


> IMHO if your hydrometer does not have unite of specific gravity, take it back and swap it for one that does. This is the only scale I read, because it's the only one that isn't based on calculations or approximations, and even though it's the most complex, it leads to less errors and misunderstandings than the two scales you mentioned. But YMMV
> Hopefully



This isn't that important but I find the SG scale the most confusing, because there are too many zeros involved and everything comes after the decimal point. Readings like 1.010, 1.001, 1.101, it is very prone to misinterpretation. Winemakers use the baume scale which is simply the expected alcohol content, or brix which is grams/100ml. Both of these are simple scales from 1-20 or 1-30 in the usual range for winemaking/cidermaking. If my grape juice is 12 baume I know it will get to 12% alcohol, if my apple juice is 6.5 baume I know it will get to 6.5% alcohol. The scale is easy to use and read, but beer brewers have taken to the SG scale so most people on forums use it instead, even though it isn't used much in the wine industry. I don't think I have ever heard a winemaker refer to SG.


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## KudaPucat (27/6/11)

Brix is grams / 100ml... that's interesting
gravity is grams per ml...
so it's the same thing, just less scientific.
Thanks for that, I hadn't educated myself and tended just to zone out if ppl used brix, now I can translate in my head. ie 105 brix is about where a semi sweet would finish (1.050 sg) ??

(if you ignore the decimal, then gravity is just a scale from 1-1000)


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## Greg.L (27/6/11)

KudaPucat said:


> Brix is grams / 100ml... that's interesting
> gravity is grams per ml...
> so it's the same thing, just less scientific.
> Thanks for that, I hadn't educated myself and tended just to zone out if ppl used brix, now I can translate in my head. ie 105 brix is about where a semi sweet would finish (1.050 sg) ??
> ...



No, thats not how it works. SG is a measure of density relative to water. 1.100 means 10% more dense than water, 1.150 means 15% more dense than water (I think thats right). Brix is a measure of the amount of sugar in the solution. SG 1.050 = 12.5 brix or 7.0 baume. 12.5 brix means 12.5g sugar in 100g of solution. (not 12.5g in 100ml water) I was actually wrong when I said g/100ml, while that is approx correct it is actually % dissolved solids which are taken to be mostly sugar. Whatever, you just use whatever comes on the hydrometer, they are all the same at zero. I just have a preference for baume.


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## stux (27/6/11)

Greg.L said:


> If my grape juice is 12 baume I know it will get to 12% alcohol, if my apple juice is 6.5 baume I know it will get to 6.5% alcohol




This may be true when a specific wort/must ends at or near SG 1.000, but Beer rarely ends at 1.000, and is normally somewhere between 1.005 and 1.015. 

This is essentially the 6.5 baume minus 1.5 baume = 5 baume.

or is that what you're saying, because that's pretty much how SG works anyway.

SG is quite simple rarely its the relative density of the liquid compared to water... forget about the 1 point oh bit if you want, so you know 1.000 feels like water in your mouth, 0.998 feels a bit thinner, and 1.010 is a bit thicker, and 1.020 is positively chewy

AND you can use the difference in OG and FG to tell the alchamahol too.

Lets talk about Plato now


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## Greg.L (27/6/11)

Stux said:


> This may be true when a specific wort/must ends at or near SG 1.000, but Beer rarely ends at 1.000, and is normally somewhere between 1.005 and 1.015.
> 
> This is essentially the 6.5 baume minus 1.5 baume = 5 baume.
> 
> ...



Yes Stux, we are in agreement here. My point was -

1; you don't have to do any calculation with baume for wine and cider. This is the non-beer section.

2; most winemakers use baume.


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## KudaPucat (27/6/11)

I'm an anal engineer type. g/ml makes me happy. (actually i think its kg/m3- but thats getting really semantic!)
I can use it, I can get out the scales and calculate it if my hydrometer breaks. It's just nice. 
I see. Brix is grams of SUGAR per 100ml not grams of solution. Damn :-(
Oh well thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. If you have any questions of gravity, ask I can throw pages of math at you from off the top of my head (which is why I find it easy)


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