Hi everyone,
This is the first time I ever tried a hand at brewing. I respected the instructions of my beer kit (objective: Amber Belgian) in terms of quantities and temperatures, and have been storing the glass demijohn between 17°C and 21°C. When I pitched my yeast the wort was at 21°C, and for the first couple hours about 1cm of krausen did develop inside the demijohn (see pic, left). Since then it's been five days and there's no foam to be seen. However I think something is still happening (albeit very slowly) because I get a bubble every 20-70 seconds (stayed within this range over the past five days) and the surface does show tiny bubbles (see pic, right) keep coming up at a slow rate. There's also a good 2cm of gunk at the bottom of the demijohn (dead yeast?) and the colour has become lighter (but still completely opaque). The recipe said 3 weeks primary & 2 weeks bottle fermentation, is it at all possible that the peak has passed so quickly? Is this normal?
The picture shows three photos, left to right: Day 0, Day 3, Day 5 (right now).
I'm guessing one of the following could be the issue:
1- I shouldn't have pitched the dry yeast directly into the wort (I keep reading about making starters?)
2- I should have shaken the wort more vigorously after pitching the yeast (I barely moved it, it stayed floating on top)
3- Improper sanitation? (I had 1072 OG so I added unsanitized tap water to reach target 1055)
4- Fermentation over? (then where are these bubbles coming from?)
5- Yeast somehow died (hostile environment? chlorine in tap water? room temperature variation? too rapid growth/overpopulated and then starved? ...?)
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks in advance
This is the first time I ever tried a hand at brewing. I respected the instructions of my beer kit (objective: Amber Belgian) in terms of quantities and temperatures, and have been storing the glass demijohn between 17°C and 21°C. When I pitched my yeast the wort was at 21°C, and for the first couple hours about 1cm of krausen did develop inside the demijohn (see pic, left). Since then it's been five days and there's no foam to be seen. However I think something is still happening (albeit very slowly) because I get a bubble every 20-70 seconds (stayed within this range over the past five days) and the surface does show tiny bubbles (see pic, right) keep coming up at a slow rate. There's also a good 2cm of gunk at the bottom of the demijohn (dead yeast?) and the colour has become lighter (but still completely opaque). The recipe said 3 weeks primary & 2 weeks bottle fermentation, is it at all possible that the peak has passed so quickly? Is this normal?
The picture shows three photos, left to right: Day 0, Day 3, Day 5 (right now).
I'm guessing one of the following could be the issue:
1- I shouldn't have pitched the dry yeast directly into the wort (I keep reading about making starters?)
2- I should have shaken the wort more vigorously after pitching the yeast (I barely moved it, it stayed floating on top)
3- Improper sanitation? (I had 1072 OG so I added unsanitized tap water to reach target 1055)
4- Fermentation over? (then where are these bubbles coming from?)
5- Yeast somehow died (hostile environment? chlorine in tap water? room temperature variation? too rapid growth/overpopulated and then starved? ...?)
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks in advance