So I am working on my 1st batch of home brew, all went well, using an extract kit, stuff bubbled like crazy after 12 hours or so. Now about 72 + hours after it stopped in the primary fermentation stage. when stiring it up (shaking) it goes for 2-3 min and then stops again.
is it ready to go to the carboy? what is the issue and what can I do?
Leave it alone. Vigorous fermentation may only last for 2-3 days. Bubbles are not a sign that your beer is/is not done. I leave my beer in primary for 3 weeks - no secondary. I don’t shake it or anything like that.
If you are going to use secondary, you still want to just leave it alone for 10-14 days in primary - there is more going on in there than you realize. Yeast are still active. Eating up other things besides just the sugars in the wort.
After 10-14 days you can transfer to secondary if you want, or like I said, lots of people just go with a 2-3 week primary and then keg or bottle.
Couple things that could result in fast primary fermentation though - what yeast were you using and what temp. were you fermenting at?
Higher temps (over 70) and certain yeasts (wheat beers in particular) will have faster ferments.
I’d let it go at least a week, those yeast are still cleaning up after themselves even though most of the sugar is converted to alcohol now.
What temp did you ferment at? Unless its a small beer I often worry when people say their ferments were done in a couple of days. Too warm (over 70F) makes for a lot of fusel alcohols and esters. Plus since fermentation releases heat, a beer fermenting at 70F ambient will get up to 75-80F at the peak of activity.
Beat me to it Prof! But I couldn’tr bear to erase mine and put +1.
great minds think alike:)
worked with generic Dry yeast that came with the kit, fermenting temperature (outside the bucked) is 65 farhenheit
I guess I let it sit for another week to 10 days then and hope for the best
thanks for the thoughts
Should be fine then, I’ve had numerous beers in the 1.040-1.050 range that finished the majority of the ferm quickly. I also have some buckets that don’t seal terribly well and you can’t tell whats going on inside unless you pop the top and look.
