WeaselEstateBrewery
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 24/6/08
- Messages
- 168
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi - I recently (Wednesday) brewed my first all-grain, a pilsener. After reading infinite articles, forums and books about AG brewing I stumbled through the processand made a few mistakes, notably:
- not enough water as i only ended up with 17 litres. i have since read lots of articles on this and know how to fix it (use more water!).
- I didn't take an OG reading.
But the main thing is that it looks like fermentation never started. I cooled the wort down - overnight as I don't have a chiller yet - to 19 degrees before pitching the Safale lager yeast. I then cooled it down to 11 degrees in my temperature controlled fridge. There is no bubbling in the airlock but more importantly the gravity reading is 1040 (first one taken this morning; as mentioned above in my all-grain excitement I forgot to take an OG reading).
I have done plenty of extract brews but they have all been ales, so I am not sure if this is normal for cooler fermenting lagers. Should I be concerned at this stage?
- not enough water as i only ended up with 17 litres. i have since read lots of articles on this and know how to fix it (use more water!).
- I didn't take an OG reading.
But the main thing is that it looks like fermentation never started. I cooled the wort down - overnight as I don't have a chiller yet - to 19 degrees before pitching the Safale lager yeast. I then cooled it down to 11 degrees in my temperature controlled fridge. There is no bubbling in the airlock but more importantly the gravity reading is 1040 (first one taken this morning; as mentioned above in my all-grain excitement I forgot to take an OG reading).
I have done plenty of extract brews but they have all been ales, so I am not sure if this is normal for cooler fermenting lagers. Should I be concerned at this stage?