Sanke Fermenter Kit -- bad seal?

[bwarbiany]

Hey, I've got one of the Brewers Hardware sanke fermenter kits. I brewed 10 gallons of my milk stout on Sunday, rehydrated 2 packs of Nottingham yeast, pitched, and have yet to see bubbles in the blowoff vessel.

I have the main o-ring installed, and I checked to make sure it's seated properly. I have my racking tube installed, with an o-ring, and I have no reason to think I'm losing any more pressure through the racking cane outlet than I would have on previous brews. And I can "smell" the fermentation (not sure if one can "smell" CO2, but you get the nostril burn from inhaling it). Yet no bubbles.

Process-wise, nothing is out of the ordinary. The beer was at 64 deg when I pitched, and it's in a fermentation fridge holding constant at that temp. I pitched 2 packs of properly-rehydrated yeast, so viability shouldn't have been an issue. OG was 1.062, so it shouldn't have shocked the yeast. And I've fermented in this vessel several times, and have had bubbles each time (except the first batch, when I never installed the main O-ring). About the only process thing that could potentially affect this is that I sterilize the keg and Brewer's Hardware kit by basically assembling the fermenter (without the tri-clover clamp) and boil some water in the fermenter to steam-sterilize EVERYTHING). If the steam has damaged the o-ring killing the seal, it could explain it.

My possibilities are thus an air leak or a completely dead ferment. I'm ***REALLY*** hoping it's not the latter, but wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this with the Brewer's Hardware kit. Are my sterilization procedures to blame?

[JonW]

Do you have some of the Nottingham from the recall? Some of it wasn't fermenting well so they recalled it.

I have the exact same fermenting setup and I have to say that the only negative I can see in it is the fact that I can't see in it!

[brahn]

I had this problem with my first beer in the sanke kit, it fermented out fine but I never saw a bubble. I'm not really sure why that was, maybe a loose fitting hose on the blowoff or something else? I did find a very tiny leak around the temp probe (which Derrin promptly fixed!) but I fermented another beer in between the first and getting it fixed and it bubbled away just fine. My best guess was a loose fitting hose on the blowoff, but I don't really know.

For sanitizing, I don't put the fermenter adapter in the keg while I boil it. I just soak that in some star san or iodophor before putting it in the fermenter. I'm not sure if that would make a difference or not. If the o-ring is leaking, I'd think you might have a problem when you try to rack the beer out too.

[backyard brewer]

Mist the top with Star San and see if you get bubbles anywhere. I doubt it's leaking from the o-ring unless that shifted when you were assembling it, but it could be leaking CO2 from the blow-off connection.

Also, did you use both o-rings on the racking cane?

[jward]

I have my racking tube installed, with an o-ring,

Like Derrin asked, are you using both small O-rings on the racking tube? My first batch sounds much like yours until I added the second O-ring. I thought it was a spare but the seal requires, or at least benefits from, using both O-rings. It started working then. Unfortunately, the fermentation finished that night and I didn't get to monitor it well for more bubbles.

[bwarbiany]

I am only using 1 O-ring on the racking tube... I also thought the second may be a spare. I may have to add the second before I rack to keg (since I usually do so under pressure, which I suppose won't work well with such a leak).

I bought the Nottingham from O'Shea, but didn't keep the packages to figure out whether it was a recalled lot.