First night airlock was bubbling, 2nd day no action in airlock. Checked to see if there is a layer of foam which there was. Is this normal?
Could be. What temperature is it fermenting at?
Yes this is normal. Just because the airlock isn’t bubbling doesn’t mean that there isn’t active fermentation. For example, buckets are notorious for leaky seals causing little to no airlock activity. In addition, the yeast is still active cleaning up after their big party.
Also, it sounds like you were fermenting your beer way to warm which results in quick fermentation. Check out swamp coolers for an easy way to keep those temps down. Also, Nighthawk (on this forum) has some great ideas in his signature line.
Temp is 72 F. I have browsed this forum and found the standard temp should be 60 to 65. Do you think the beer is still okay? Should I still leave it ferment for the required time period? I’m a first time brewer so this is all exciting and confusing to me.
Wendy,
What type of beer are you making? 72F is a little high, but depending on the type of beer, you should be fine. As others will say, fermenting at higher temperatures could produce off flavors, you will still have beer.
Get us some additional information if you can such as:
Type of beer / yeast used
Temp of wort when you pitched yeast
How long it’s been fermenting
Did you take an OG reading, if so, was it accurate for the recipe, etc.
Also, as Loopie stated, airlock activity is not a good indicator of fermentation activity. Get us some more information and we can try to help out.
Beer: Caribou Slobber Brown Ale
Yeast: Danstar Windsor Ale Yeast (dry yeast pack)
Fermenting since Sunday 10/20/13.
One thing to remember is that yeast produce heat while ther ferment. So you say the temp ws 72*. If this was AMBIENT air temp the ferment temp was closer to 77*… which is high and is likely the cause of the quick ferment. Once again, research on how to keep those temps down.
You still made beer, just not as good as it could have been. When you ferment to warm it can produce rich esters and fusel alcohol which has a boozy, solventy taste. These rarely age out.
Welcome to brewing. We all had to learn so don’t give up.
