Day 3 - The Nut Grows!

Our first brew has shown signs of life. What started off as a little bubble has grown into a massive mushroom cloud of yeasty goodness.

In all honesty during Day 2 I almost mistook the first frothy layer as mold. That scared the bejeebus out of me. Mold is the enemy. The action of fermentation actually is a very good anti-bacterial and anti-mold agent. But if the yeast doesn't take, or if there are sanitation issues, no fermentation = possibilities of many bad things happening to the wort (malted barley concoction). But one look at this massive moving pillows of odd and I knew we were in business.

I also relocated the fermenting to my room. The previous location corner near the kitchen, was just too cold. The yeast wants to do its magic around 65-70 degrees. Kitchen area was holding out at 60 degrees :( In my room I can manage the temps much easier.

You can see here the wonders of ALE yeast. The yeast works top-down, as opposed to LAGER yeast that works from bottom up and is a bit more finicky. It mainly likes a much colder and very constant temperature.

To think this disgustingness will soon be so incredibly delicious.

I see lots of brown clumps in the bubble top. I am guessing this is due to not enough mixing of the yeast and the wort. When we threw this yeast, we merely shook the carboy container for a few minutes to get air into it. On our new brew we will make sure it gets better mixed and much more oxygen will be added creating a better beer.