update on corn and malted barley wash

[gobbler777]

aight guys tried my hand at an all grain using 20 pounds of cracked corn and 4 pounds of malted barley for a 10 gal wash, i thought i got a good conversion but after 24 hours it still wasnt bubbling so i got impatient and just went ahead and put in 10 pounds of sugar and pitched some more yeast (im using distillers yeast) and 48 hours later its still not bubbling any ideas as to why this is happening

[gobbler777]

nevermind on the question guys, i have narrowed it down to a couple of things and im going to start over with it, either its to hot in my building and my fan i have on my barrel isnt keeping it cool enough or i didnt get all the bleach out of my barrel after i cleaned it

[MuleKicker]

I would bet on the bleach. It dont take much. That shit is bad news.

[rubber duck]

How much yeast did you pitch? It could just be lagging. By bubbling I assume your using a air lock? Distillers yeast can take a lot of heat and the bleach will make your mash taste like shit but you would have to seriously mess up to kill your yeast with bleach.

My guess is your yeast was dead or weak before you pitched.

[gobbler777]

wasnt using an airlock i was doing a open top ferment, after 24 hours there was alot of foam on the top of my wash but i didnt see any fermenting action so thats when i put the 10 pounds of sugar in and added more yeast, i am with you on the dead or weak yeast because the yeast i used had been in the fridge for about 2 months, so after i read your post i went ahead and bought a new fresh pack of distillers yeast and pitched it and still nothing after 72 hours, my mash still tastes alittle sweet so im assuming it never fermented at all, i guess the bleach got me or a miracle happened and it fermented in the first 24 hours when it foamed up lol

[rubber duck]

If it foamed up real big it could have been mostly done in 24 hours. Assuming that you didn't get great conversion, fermented at a high temp, and pitched a lot of yeast, having to cap fall in 24 hours isn't unheard of.

This is where a hydrometer comes in handy.

Assuming you don't have a hydrometer let it sit a couple of more days and taste it again. 10lb of sugar after the initial ferment is a lot all at once, If your going to do something like that split it up over 3 days.

[gobbler777]

thanks for the advice fellas, if nobody ever screwed up nobody would ever learn anything, so if this wash doesnt turn out the next one hopefully will from what i learned the past couple go rounds