Re: Help My Kit Has Stopped Fermenting

Pav · Post by **Pav** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:14 pm

Great post. Really useful links,
I am puzzled by the tip "Donâ€™t start a siphon by sucking on it. "

How else do you get it flowing?!

yashicamat · Post by **yashicamat** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:56 pm

Pav wrote:Great post. Really useful links,
I am puzzled by the tip "Donâ€™t start a siphon by sucking on it. "

How else do you get it flowing?!

I fill mine with clean water, holding both ends up at the same level. When it's full, I cap each end with my thumbs (I have relatively sterile hands at this point from handling the steralising solution for the siphon tube etc.), drop one end into the beer (wort, etc.) then lower the other end below the level of the liquid I'm siphoning and remove my thumb. Hey presto.

Definately worth playing about with water first to get the hang of it through. Another thing you can do (and I do most of the time now) is have a "bottle filler" on the exit pipe. This is effectively a one-way valve which is released by allowing the tube to drop onto the surface of whatever you're filling, which pushes a pin in and allows the flow to resume. By using this, I'm not trying to cap that end with my thumb so I can easily drop it into my barrel. It also is technically more hygenic as you don't have to use your thumb on it, but I've never had a problem with the latter anyway as during any brew operation my hands come into repeated contact with VWP and the like, so are scrubbed pretty clean anyway!

bigad82 · Post by **bigad82** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:01 pm

Just gargle with bleach before sucking.

arturobandini · Post by **arturobandini** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:34 pm

My girlfriend (brewing assistant!) devised a canny method. Using a sterilised turkey baster; squeeze all the air out of your baster, place it at the end of the tube so the two points meet and let go. It got it going in one go and I never had to restart it once as it drained the primary into the bottling bucket pretty quickly too. Very low-tech solution for me and making use of a piece of brewing equipment I already had!

MikeG · Post by **MikeG** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:59 pm

DaaB wrote:*Environment is too cold...yeast will go dormant if the beer gets too cold, make sure the enviroment is between 18 and 26 deg c. Thermostaticaly controlled immersion heaters are available if the beer is in a cold room.

Thanks for this post, it's really helpfull.

I brew in a shed in the garden which, at this time of the year is quite cold. I have a heated belt round the FV with an old towel under and two cardboard boxes (one inside the other) covering it all. Should I really be considering an immersion heater, do you think?

MikeG · Post by **MikeG** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:31 pm

Chris-x1 wrote:..A thermostatically controlled immersion heater should keep the fermenting beer at a much more stable temperature, although there will be a small difference between the beer in contact with the heater and the beer in contact with the fermenter wall. Insulating it as you already do will minimise this.

Hmm.. I'm wondering how controllable the thermostat on an electrim bin is.

HG wrote:I use an Electrim and have found that the thermostat can hold the temp fine without added insulation.

in this thread on using an electrim bin as an MT.

Has anyone used one as an FV?

Parva · Post by **Parva** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:14 am

Are you in the 'kit' camp or the 'AG' camp MikeG? Or maybe in-betwen with extract?

Titanium Tone · Post by **Titanium Tone** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:33 am

I brew in a shed in the garden which, at this time of the year is quite cold. I have a heated belt round the FV with an old towel under and two cardboard boxes (one inside the other) covering it all. Should I really be considering an immersion heater, do you think?[/quote]

I have found that the electrim cant cope in the garage if you think you would not have a fish tank out there with tropical fish. I have found that the brew belt can cope but its not easy to controll tempreture so i have invested in a ATC300 which will turn the belt on and off when the set temp is reached hope this might help Tone.

MikeG · Post by **MikeG** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:30 pm

Parva wrote:Are you in the 'kit' camp or the 'AG' camp MikeG? Or maybe in-betwen with extract?

Kit at the moment but aspiring to AG. Why do you ask?

MikeG · Post by **MikeG** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:43 pm

Titanium Tone wrote:I have found that the electrim cant cope in the garage if you think you would not have a fish tank out there with tropical fish. I have found that the brew belt can cope but its not easy to controll tempreture so i have invested in a ATC300 which will turn the belt on and off when the set temp is reached hope this might help Tone.

Thanks for that Tone. In what way do you find that the electrim bin can't cope in the garage?

I would have thought that there is plenty of power; the only thing I wonder about is can you set the thermostat, reliably, as low as 20ÂºC for example?

Titanium Tone · Post by **Titanium Tone** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 1:25 pm

Hi MikeG i think i have got the wrong end of the stick when you metioned Electrim i thought you ment an Electrim submersible fish tank heater. I have one of these and use it for fermentation in the garage it was all ok in the warner months but now the temp is so low at night it could not cope. Sorry for any confusion. Tone.

Wolfdog · Post by **Wolfdog** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:14 am

Hi there, I've just started my first home brew kit, kicked off on Saturday, Cooper IPA (40 pint tin) mixed with Coooper Amber LME (1.5kg of) Did what it said on the tin, started to ferment, the this morning (Monday the 9th) it was flat as a keff! no bubbles nowt

My centrel heating system had packed in during the night!!!
Question; whats the best way to reactivate under these conditions?
Question; Am I best using some kind of tank heater to maintain constant heat in future?
thank you for any help,........

Wolfdog · Post by **Wolfdog** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:34 pm

Cheers for that Chris

,
SG was at about 1016ish, so I guess it had stalled. I took a half day off and went to the brew shop and got a brew belt, this seems to have helped to get little bubbles to start. I will now take your advice and rouse up the yeast a little. The brew looks very muddy, is this normal?
The old boy at the brew shop also suggested that I could add a little suger to kick it back to life. I will keep you informed.

Parva · Post by **Parva** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:52 am

This wouldn't be Abbey Homebrew shop would it?

Wolfdog · Post by **Wolfdog** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:52 pm

Parva wrote:This wouldn't be Abbey Homebrew shop would it?

No its a little home brew shop at Shipley, tiny little place it is, run by a proper old boy, I dont even know what its called? I just saw it the other day and thought! "Home brew, what a good idea!" "I'll do that!"

I'm just hoping that i get it right, My brew has settled down now in terms of fermenting, but if I put my ear to the gap in the lid I can hear a the sound of small bubbles popping, so I guess its still going? I bought a brew belt and have installed it yesterday, the SG is down to 1012 and falling. The OSG was 1038-40 ish, so I think it's going to make for a strongish brew, I'm hoping for 1004 as a bottling point. I just hope I havnt over done it with the 1.5kg of LME i used instead of 500g
of sugar and 300g of dextros, any thoughts on this matter any one??

Any way fingers crossed I will have a brew that I can drink! Once Ive masterd the tin kits i want to move on to the ful mashings as it were,...............

Cheers,Pete

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