After five days and many sleepless nights, I finally see bubbles in the airlock! Vigorous bubbles! This must be some slow activating yeast. I took a hydrometer reading this morning and I don’t think it budged from its initial reading. But when I got home from work, the airlock was hopin’.

I didn’t mention in my initial post on the Grand Cru, but much of my trepidation was caused by the fact that I could not get my wort to cool fast enough before I had to leave my house Saturday morning. I think the wort was around 37 degrees Celsius after nearly an hour and a half, and that was with it sitting in a pale of ice. (It should be around 23 degrees Celsius when you pitch (add – fancy brewing term) the yeast. I was very worried that I had killed all the yeast by putting in the warm wort.

However, a valuable thought came to me through this. Since I don’t have a wort chiller, refrigerate the water I use to brew the beer! Sometimes I am amazed I’ve made it this long in the world.

But now I can enjoy my sister’s great day in peace, knowing that there is hope for my brew!