No bubbles through airlock

Customer_Question

Hi. I bought a new homebrew kit and a Muntons beer Kit from you recently. I followed everything exactly, sterilising everything etc. Now, after completing mixing the all the ingredients precisely to Muntons instructions, fitting lid and bubbler to the lid, I was expecting to see it bubbling away this morning, but no. I can see the brew has developed a head through the barrel, but I noticed that the primary fermenter does not have an ‘o’ ring seal around the lid- should it have? My wife said she had not seen it bubble at all during the day. The brew can be smelt in the room, so it occurs to me that perhaps any gases are venting out of the lid and not through the bubbler- does this sound right? (the lid has been forced down really tight). Also, with the air temp being so hot, the fermenter reached around 32 degrees briefly today- will this be a problem, and if so, any hints on reviving please? I have moved it to the coolest area which is around 23 degrees at the moment. Thanks.

HBO_Staff

Glad to hear you’ve got your beer kit up and running. It sounds as though you’ve done everything correctly and the fact that a head is developing shows that it’s going fine. Some beer kits will ferment vigorously for a short time, some will be a gentler process for a longer time, it depends on many factors such as the type of malt and yeast and also the temperature.

As a general rule, if there is a reaction occurring within 48 hours then the yeast is doing it’s job and everything is fine, it’s just a case of letting it get on with it. The fermenter doesn’t need to be airtight, the process can be done with no lid at all, it just helps keep bacteria out. The temperature should be fine, if the temperature got really high at the beginning of the fermentation process there is a chance that the yeast could have died, in which case the process would have stopped and more yeast would be required, this doesn’t sound to be the case here. You can check with your hydrometer every couple of days to be sure that the SG readings are changing.

If you have any further queries or that doesn’t answer all your questions please get back in touch.