First total failure of my homebrew journey, and I have no idea why… I was really looking forward to this brew, a pitch-black stout with smoked wheat, chocolate malt and black malt. For yeast, I was anticipating to try Alzymologist’s speciality.
However, it’s been four days in the fermenter and I’ve pitched three yeasts – first the Alzymologist (made a starter), then my usual fresh yeast without a starter and for the last desperate attempt some dry wine yeast – I can only come to the conclusion that my wort is poison. Not a sliver of CO2 has been produced. First yeast did produce heat in the wort for a day, but no CO2. Tried heating the wort, agitating and all, but it remains dead.
Some little changes in my process were made – 18 liters instead of 19 for mashing so that I could fit 900 grams extra malt in, and strike temperature up by one degree to 72 °C due to less water and more grain. Tomorrow evening I’m going to have to dump 20 litres of fine wort down the toilet and plan another brew day. Damn, this loss hits like having to bury a pet…
K, yea sounds similar to my setup. I’ve had issues where the fermentor lid wasn’t seated right and gas leaked before where you’d see the bubbles. Just a thought. I assume you opened it up and there’s no foam?
Yes, I’ve opened it a number of times now and absolutely no foam… Did one last pitch with a starter that I kept an eye on for five hours and it was very much going strong by that point. Yet that too succumbed to the void :[
The thing I like most about this kind of setup is how after the yeast is pitched and the pressure lid is closed, you don’t open it again until all the beer is gone… the peace of mind that the beer is kept hermetically in a steel vessel in a protective CO2 atmosphere. There have been a couple of second pitches in the past, and I’ve kind of branded those batches as second grade simply because I had to open the holy seal and re-pitch :D