Apa Help

[Crusty]

Hi all,
Brewed an American Pale Ale last night & may have a problem. Hit my mash temp of 66, missed my mashout by a couple of degrees, 74 instead of 76. Came in at 1.051 corrected gravity & made adjustments to achieve pre-boil gravity of 1.042. Boil for 60min, hop additions as normal & cooled close to pitching temp. Transferred to fermenter, aerated via gravity transfer from kettle. Gravity in at 1.051 corrected to starting target of 1.048, ended up with 25litres. 2am in the morning at this stage & pitched Wyeast 1056 at 3deg higher at 27 instead of 24, had no problems in the past this way. Fermentation seemed to begin almost immediately & I went to bed. Checking fermentation this morning ( air temp 24deg ) & nothing. No airlock activity. Sanitized my spoon, give it a quick stir to help it along, 15mins later, still nothing. 5 hours into fermentation as I write this. Whats going down. Hope I haven't stuffed this one up.
I have a pkt of dried Craftbrewer American Ale yeast laying around. Should I pitch this or wait a little longer.

Tired & angry,
Crusty

 

[Hashie]

Relax, I wouldn't be too worried for at least 24 hrs.

That said I have had yeast take 48 hrs to kick off.

Rather than opening your fermentor and stirring, I would be giving it a swirl instead. That way you wont lose the co2 blanket by opening, or introduce possible infections with your (I know you sanitised it) spoon.

Just my 2c.

 

[Crusty]

Thanks Hashie,

Probably a little anxious. Done quite a few AG & most, not all seem to be bubbling slowly when I get up the next morning. This was a late brew though, 2am bedtime, & I'll see how things go later today/tonight. Tried a little finer crush to help my efficieny along & managed a stuck sparge, twice. All turned out pretty good though with targets & volumes. Target 1.048 fermented down to 1.014 will give me around 70% efficiency, not too bad.

Crusty

 

[Screwtop]

Lag time is fine, take advantage of this.......if you have a kitchen whisk (I use a large chefs whisk), sanitise it and give the wort a good whisk to aerate again (fine to do this before Krausen forms). Fermemtation temp of 19 would be best.

Screwy

 

[Howlingdog]

Fermentation seemed to begin almost immediately & I went to bed.

Noting the above, have you taken a S.G. reading? Maybe it's all done and dusted.

HG

 

[Stagger]

pitched Wyeast 1056 at 3deg higher at 27

WOW, this is very high, remember most of the flavour is produced in the first 6 hours. Personally I would never pitch that high but thats just me, check the gravity at that temp and good healthy yeast it might be finished. May have a little green apple though.

 

[Ross]

WOW, this is very high, remember most of the flavour is produced in the first 6 hours. Personally I would never pitch that high but thats just me, check the gravity at that temp and good healthy yeast it might be finished. May have a little green apple though.

Stagger,

Crusty only pitched 5 hours ago... I don't think it will have finished yet

Crusty, patience mate - leave it well alone & hopefully get it down closer to 20c before it fires.

Cheers Ross

 

[Crusty]

She's away. Temp is around 22 & it's bubbling away at about a bloop every 10seconds or so. I would never normally pitch that high a temp but pushing just past 2am I had to get to bed. A definate improvement for the JSGA clone I am doing next weekend is running the aquarium pump in an ice bath in a seperate esky for the wort chiller. Had a really hard time last night getting temp down to pitch & time got away. Took far too long. I really need a fermentation fridge too.

Cheers all,

Crusty