Fermentation won't start - HELP!

[AbacusBrewingCo]

it's all good, me too. you're right anyway, i woke up to an explosion of fermentation... 5 gal batch in 6.5gal carboy and it overflowed the airlock, i guess im good to go from here, it just took longer than expected.

[Bad Goat Brewing]

it's all good, me too. you're right anyway, i woke up to an explosion of fermentation... 5 gal batch in 6.5gal carboy and it overflowed the airlock, i guess im good to go from here, it just took longer than expected.

Those big beers will do that! The first big beer I did plugged the air lock and blew it out so hard I had yeast on the ceiling. I didn't know about blow off tubes yet. I also failed to realize how much more high gravity beers warm up, and i ended up with an ester bomb. It was not a good beer. You're definitely not the first one make some mistakes with high gravity beers.

[Bad Goat Brewing]

Oh, if you're not paying attention to the date on the smack pack. The older packs take a lot longer to start than the new ones. If I can't get fresh wyeast packs I go with dry.

[AbacusBrewingCo]

yeah it didnt blow over THAT badly, but there was a little bit of wort on the floor to clean up. my ambient is in the mid-60's and i have a fermwrap and etc to keep it up to a consistent 68 degF... but since this is going over my ideal temp, i'm not sure how to keep it cool...

any suggestions how to keep the carboy below 70 degF without taking up a lot of space (a bucket of ice isn't really an option)? it's also way too cold outside to put it out there, even with the heater attached.

[AbacusBrewingCo]

Oh, if you're not paying attention to the date on the smack pack. The older packs take a lot longer to start than the new ones. If I can't get fresh wyeast packs I go with dry.

pretty new pack, date is only 2, maybe 3 months ago

[Bad Goat Brewing]

You wont need a fermwrap until fermentation is almost done.
Put it a container with about 4 inches of water and cover it with a wet T-shirt. Then take a fan and point it at the carboy.

[spiderwrangler]

It isn't needed, especially since your fermenting now, but just to clarify:

5 gal @ 1.097 + 2 L @ 1.040 won't equal 5.5 gal @ 1.100... it will slightly lower your overall gravity.

[AbacusBrewingCo]

true. my scenario was a little different: 4 gal (unknown, i didnt measure until after topping off) + 0.5gal water + 2L 1.040 = 1.097. i was saying that this would be higher than 4 gal (same unknown) + 1 gal water, because of the half pound of dme used to make the starter. the recipe had a projected gravity of 1.090 under the latter scenario.

i haven't run the numbers to see what the projected gravity would be with the extra 0.5lb of dme, so i dont know if that's a large or small part of the reason the gravity wound up being 1.097, rather than 1.090 as projected. i should probably go find my notes on the recipe and rerun the numbers with the extra 0.5lb dme, but either way i probably did something else to get a higher gravity, maybe extra time steeping specialty grains?



thanks for the advice on keeping it cool, i'll see if i can put together i setup like that, i like the concept because it's easy to add some ice and bring the temp back down as needed. since standing water + rampaging 3 year old is a bad mix, any advice that doesn't involve 4" of free-standing water?