What's going on with my brew? Sediment airlock activation

[booosh]

Set my second ever batch of kit beer up on Friday. I had a lovely bubbling airlock all of Saturday and Sunday. My fermentation bucket seems to have a decent seal.

When I got back from work on day three (Monday) my bucket was showing no signs of life. No airlock bubbling and no foaming/bubbling of the actual brew.

I gave it a quick spin as if it was the steering wheel of a go-kart which knocked a lot of sediment up into the mix. Around 20 minutes later, the brew is bubbling away quite happily.

Why is this? I'm concerned that the extra sugar I added may not have fully dissolved or something. I have a thick sediment layer of around 10mm. I gave the brew a BIG stir on addition of my fermentables this time as I was concerned about the same thing on my previous batch. However, I only used hot tap water not boiling water (although my tap water is really hot).

 

[pittsy]

All is well mate , just sit back and give it another week . The yeast sometimes gets lazy and sluggish and stirring the brew can awaken them .

 

[PD]

did you use a hydrometer and take any gravity readings ? Its the only way to be sure fermentation has finished. Stirring the brew will release some gas and also make available any unused sugars for the yeast.

However the main concern is when you sayyou ued hot water tap water for your brew ! You should use cooled BOILED fresh water from your cold tap or from bottles...not hot water thats been sitting around in a tank for ages...

 

[booosh]

However the main concern is when you sayyou ued hot water tap water for your brew ! You should use cooled BOILED fresh water from your cold tap or from bottles...not hot water thats been sitting around in a tank for ages...

Got an initial gravity reading, but don't want to take another one so soon. I will leave it a week and stir it slowly once of twice.

Surely the cold water that you use to top the fermenter up has also been sitting in the tank? Or do you guys boil that too / use bottled water?

 

[LeithR]

The cold water tap is normally connected to the mains the hot water is stored in a tank in your loft or somewhere high so it can gravity feed the hot water taps.

+1 for PD's comment on cooled boiled water. You don't know what nasties you are introducing when taking water from the hot water system directly into the brew.

 

[booosh]

Ahh right I see. Will be using boiled water in the future! As a matter of interest my beer's original gravity was 1.050 and it's current gravity is at 1.022.

 

[pittsy]

i would expect your brew to be around 1008 maybe lower .

 

[Algernon]

Would you still have a problem using warm tap water if you had a combi-boiler heating water on demand? I often use hot tap water for mashing, and if I did that overnight and it was contaminated I can imagine a manky mash by the next day...

 

[NickW]

If you've got a combi boiler you won't have a tank in your loft. That should be fine