How Good Is My Airlock Lookin?

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carniebrew

Brewvy baby, brewvy!
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I can't help but think all new home brewers should be made to brew a wheat beer first, just so they can get all that "my airlock isn't doing anything" stuff outa their system....

Here's my partial boil/extract "Frau Farbissina Dunkelweizen", brewed last night and in my brewfridge only 20 hours:
 
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:eek:

I think you may be opening a can of worms (or perhaps kittens) with this post...
 
You're not doing it right. I can't see any kittens in there :p
 
Of course the "kitten" (airlock) nay-sayers have missed a very important point regarding the usefulness of airlocks.

A fully sealed "cube" with attached airlock prevents against oxidation in finished beer.

If you keg and drink quickly, then oxidation is not a problem. However, if you condition your beers in your fermentation vessel for a couple of weeks then an airlock is extremely important for two resons:

1. Fully sealing (ie screwing the lid of the vessel completely shut) has the potential to allow build-up of gases and an exploding container full of precious beer.

2. Not fully sealing your container (ie glad wrap or indeed a "loose" seal) allows for introduction of oxygen ingress resulting in oxidised beer.

cheers

Ala
 
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Can anyone link me to the original 'kitten' thread? I've tried the search function ...
 
This is the beginning of the kitten thing.


If by action, you mean airlock activity, I'm going to drop everything I'm doing, come over to your house, and choke a kitten in front of you as an object lesson. :ph34r:
Airlocks are meaningless....look for other signs. Condensation inside the lid (usually this is the first sign), foaming on top of the wort, krausen ring forming on the fermenter at the fluid level, and of course drop in SG......

But, as others have said, there is always a lag time....this can vary from a couple of hours to 48 hours....in this case, I would expect it's likely that you'll start getting signs of activity, maybe later this afternoon/tonight. (given that you aerated the wort, giving it a damn good thrashing. The more you do, the better.)

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry415762
 
I humbly bow to your bloops...and can only imagine the mess that would have made of an airlock....what was the brew?

60L AG Coopers Pale Clone, with a 500ml coopers culture yeast slurry and 3 minutes of pure oxygen

I managed to catch the blow-off bottle after it filled up, before it got real messy luckily. I no longer use air-locks precisely because of the mess ;)
 
Just saying the guy is a douche, is all.
 
$10 says this guy's IP is in Adelaide.

Why are the bored trolls always from Adelaide?
 
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