Expert: Dave Nyce - 7/26/2007

Question
My wife and I just bought a kit and have started making our first brew an Irish Stout, the problem is that we put it in the bucket for the primary fermenting and its been almost four days and we don't see any bubbles in the airlock.  Should I just wait it out or is there something I can do

Answer
Make sure that you have a good seal of the fermenter and of the airlock.  If you can see tiny bubbles in the wort but not in the airlock, then there might be an air  leak.

If there is no air leak, then after 4 days, you should have seen some bubbles from the airlock.  If not, something's wrong. You may have to discard this batch and try again.  But can wait another two days just to see if it starts up.

The wort should not be hot when the yeast is pitched.  That's usually done by adding the brew to room temperature water so the the resulting wort is only slightly warm.  Before pitching the yeast, I put the yeast into a cup of starter wort.  Then it will start to give off gas in only a few hours.  When it is going well, then I pitch that into the wort in the fermenter.  That gets it started faster.

Hope this helps!

Dave