First total failure of my homebrew journey, and I have no idea why... I was really looking forward to this brew, a pitch-black stout with smoked wheat, chocolate malt and black malt. For yeast, I was anticipating to try Alzymologist's speciality.
However, it's been four days in the fermenter and I've pitched three yeasts – first the Alzymologist (made a starter), then my usual fresh yeast without a starter and for the last desperate attempt some dry wine yeast – I can only come to the conclusion that my wort is poison. Not a sliver of CO2 has been produced. First yeast did produce heat in the wort for a day, but no CO2. Tried heating the wort, agitating and all, but it remains dead.
Some little changes in my process were made – 18 liters instead of 19 for mashing so that I could fit 900 grams extra malt in, and strike temperature up by one degree to 72 °C due to less water and more grain. Tomorrow evening I'm going to have to dump 20 litres of fine wort down the toilet and plan another brew day. Damn, this loss hits like having to bury a pet...
No, I don't have means to measure that other than carrying the kettle and fermenter around :) Gotta get a meter one of these days.
The main ingredient in any brewing is patience. I hope you'll give it time. It hasn't ever happened to me but I have heard stories of worts that fermented this way. Think of a number of days you'd consider waiting for results, double it, and add a week. While you wait, buy a hydrometer.
Well, I've been brewing with a very settled process for a couple of years, and in my experience the fermentation will always have begun by the morning after setting it up. The primary reason I haven't been taking gravity readings is because I don't want to lose any of the good stuff (would not pour the OG sample back in), and since my brews tend to just work, I never needed analysis to troubleshoot either.
I have a threshold valve on the gas breather line, so I can see on a meter if pressure has accumulated, plus a water lock after the meter to show the escaping gas. These have been my references regarding fermentation.
Hmm. My one time I had a completely stuck fermentation like this, I tried a bunch of stuff like messing with the pH and repitching. The only thing that eventually worked was starting something new and pouring the old batch on top of it at the peak of the ferment. It came out okay in the end. Only bothered because it was like $90 of orange blossom honey at stake.