fermentation question

[Fred777]

This is following my brewday experience here: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=43665

We ended up with 12 litres of liquid in the fermenter (OG = 1083), a 33 litre fermenter. We pitched the yeast (White labs California ale) at 25 degrees.
We didn't see any movement in the waterlock for all the days, and were worried the fermentation didn't start. We did see foam being created on top of the beer though, so that was some reassurance.

Now 4 days later, and still no waterlock movement, we wanted to make sure things were happening and took a gravity measurement. To our surprise, the gravity was 1022 (!!!).

What could have happened in such a short amount of time without any visual indications of fermentation with exception of the foam? No bubbling airlock, ... Is that because we put 12l of beer in a 33l fermenter? And how comes we achieved this low gravity so quick then?


We tasted it, it tasted great, Iùm sure it'll be really nice once it's fully conditioned.

 

[PD]

looks like the gas was escaping from somewhere else...probably around the bung.
No problem as theres enough gas being produced to keep it clean.

 

[Michael2378]

I'd go with that and maybe the head space between the level of you brew and the lip of your FV

 

[anthonyUK]

The foam or krausen is a sure indicator of fermentation

The amount of yeast you pitched into a smaller amount of wort and the temperature being pretty high for beer fermentation will speed things up.

Reading your brewday I would have 'liquored back' to 20l or so to compensate for the boil-off.