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Did I mess up my home Brew!

emeryluc

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Ok, I did my first ever Hefeweizen yesterday, it has been about 16 hours since I put it away to ferment.  It has not started to do anything at all, not even a little bitty bubble.  So, I think I may have destroyed it by adding ice directly to cool it quickly, I added the 2nd bag of ice at about 104 degrees it quickly went to 65 degrees, I put it in the fermenting pale added the yeast but here we are the following day and nothing.  What do you all think, did I blow it?
 
I don't usually worry until at least 24 hours have passed.  As long as the wort was under about 90F when you added the yeast, you should have been OK. 

That said, what yeast are you using?  Some yeasts take a bit longer to get started.  My favorite for this is WY1272 which will take some time to get acclimated to the wort and then kind of explode with activity and be pretty much done in about 48 hours after that.

Next thing to check is that your fermentation vessel is sealed well.  I went away from the pails early in brewing because they were tough to seal easily (and open without transmitting the force down into the fermenting wort).

Something else to consider:  if you are using store bought bags of ice, you may want to choose another source.  While the water used for commercial ice is usually filtered and monitored for things such as e-coli, it is not necessarily sanitized to remove potential competition to the yeast. 
 

 
;D, thank you so much for the response.  It did start to bubble just about the same time I posted.  I am using WLP #300 yeast, it is still going strong today.  So, it is supposed to take 2 weeks, what if it stops bubbling before that?  Would I consider it done if it does stop bubbling?

thanks again
 
When it stops bubbling, it means that the main part of fermentation is over.  There usually are a number of yeast byproducts which are still in the beer and if you leave it longer, the yeasts in suspension will clean those up as well.  Ideally, you should allow the wort to ferment until you reach a stable final gravity reading over 2 to 3 days.  I do this with new yeasts to get an idea of rate of activity and ensure that they don't quit too early.  Once I have a yeast fermentation profile, I usually allow it to go through its activity and add a few extra days to ensure that it has finished before pulling a gravity sample.

My standard has always been patience during fermentation is never a bad thing.  Most yeasts I give about two weeks in the fermenter before cold crashing and bottling.  The two Belgian strains I have tried so far have been a bit slower to clean up some of the fusel alcohols, so I give them about 3 weeks (mainly applies to WY1214).



 
ok, so my brew did no go well.  I started thinking there is not way it could take more then a week to gather everything I need to keg the beer.  I've never used a keg, always bottled, but here I am beer ready and I was unable to find a beer fridge large enough for my kegs.  So, how long is ok to leave the beer in the fermenting bucket before it goes bad?  I took it out last night, it was there for 16 days, smells ok, but still no where to cool it.  I have it in the keg just waiting to find a somehow to cool it.  any ideas?

Thank you
 
I've gone up to four weeks in the fermenter before bottling.  Usually with high alcohol, darker beers, where a little bit of aging will blend the flavors together a bit smoother.  I have not brewed a hefe- yet, but do brew American wheat beers.  Generally, I try to get those off to bottle early as I find they don't age well once in the bottle.  OTOH, I don't really know how it would be if left in the fermenter for a while.

I don't keg, but if it were me, I would purge the keg with CO2 and transfer the beer into it.  Seal and leave with the proper CO2 pressure to get your carbonation.  You can then transfer into the fridge or cooler once you have it set up to house the keg.  Others how keg regularly may have better ideas around this.
 
Well my 1st attempt at making Hef did not go well.  It smelled ok but didn't taste good at all.  So, I did another last night, using extract, all seems to be going well this morning except that the fermentation has gone wild.  The fermentation lock looks like it has been taken over by bubbles and it is make lots of noise.  What did I do wrong to get so much action so quickly?  What if anything do I need to do to make sure it is ok?
 
Wrong? I'm not sure that there was anything wrong.  Much depends upon the variety of yeast used and I am not familiar with WLP300. 

Having said that, quick fermentation can be caused by (1) well oxygenated wort which allows for quick yeast growth and activity or (2) a high pitch of yeast cells which reduces the need for the yeast cells to replicate themselves before proceeding to standard fermentation activity.
 
Thanks for response.  It fermented like crazy for about 16 hrs, now it has slowed significantly so again I'm afraid that I did something wrong.  While fermenting quite vigorously yesterday the wort blocked the bubbler so when I pulled it off to change it with a clean sanitized one it let off a lot of pressure, but as soon as I put the new one on it started again.  This lasted about 2 hours now it is going well very slow, to slow for only being about 30 hours since we put it in to ferment.  So, what do you think, should I be worried?  The bulk of the mix seems to be stuck to the top of the fermenter, should I be worried, you think?

Thank again
 
The rate of yeast activity during fermentation is dependent upon the strain of yeast used, the nutrients available in the wort and oxygen available for cell reproduction.  For most yeasts, 24 to 72 hours of active krausen forming activity is standard. It can be shorter if the yeast pitch is high in cell count or longer if the yeast needs to develop many more cells to deal with the available sugars.

Typically, the yeast will undergo three stages during fermentation.  The first is the lag phase, where the yeast cells acclimate to their environment and start cell reproduction.  The second is active fermentation (as above) where the yeast cells consume as much as the available sugars as they can.  The last stage is the clean-up where the bulk of the yeast will start to flock together as the concentration of sugars decreases and the flocks fall out of solution to the bottom of the carboy/bucket.  Those yeast cells remaining in the wort/beer will start to clean up the by-products left over from the active fermentation stage -- Acetaldehyde, Diacetyl and other compounds.

This last stage usually takes a few days to up to 5 days depending upon the quality of the yeast pitched and how much they were stressed during the first two stages.

 
Hello again and thanks for your input.  So, we brewed on Friday, then on Saturday it was a volcano for about 12 hrs, then it slowed and then it went completely still.  Would I be out of line to Keg after only 6 days in the primary fermenter?  It is very silent after 12 hrs of violent activity. 
 
I would steer away from adding ice directly to your wort. You wouldn't know the makeup of the water and besides that, there may be contaminants in the ice.

I have had ferments that never krausened (sp) and still I hit my marks. I would suggest that you warm it up a bit to see if that gets the little fellas going. I usually try to get between 68 and 75 degrees on primary then crash according to recipe and style. But that is just me...Might want to ask someone that knows what they are doing  ;)
 
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