Hi everyone, I’m new to brewing and have a question. I brewed my first batch of beer on Sunday, an Irish Red Ale kit. Everything went perfectly and I hopefully had everything completely sanitized. I put the wort in a 6.5 ga plastic primary fermenter and put it in my homemade fermentation chamber and set the temp to 68º On Monday morning it was still 68 and fermenting like crazy. This morning I noticed the fermenting had seemed to stop. The temp was down to 66º so I bumped it up a bit to 72º My question is why would it stop fermenting? Doesn’t seem such a slight drop in temperature should be an issue? It’s still not bubbling after 3-4 hours at 72º
Welcome to the forum. It’s probably fine. The first phase of fermentation is very steady (sometimes violent) and active bubbling on the airlock. After a day or three, it will slow down and start the process of cleaning up after itself. You might be leaking enough around the lid such that the CO2 is not causing bubbling. No big deal. Give it another week (1-2) and then either transfer to clear it up of bottle it. Congrats on making your first batch of beer.
What the ambient temp 68 or the temperature of the liquid 68? If the ambient temp was 68 you probably fermented a little on the high side but it should still turn out fine. The initial portion of the fermentation is probably complete. This was also my first beer a couple months ago and mine was done bubbling within the first 3 days.
Thanks Greg. I suspected that but figured it would take a day or two and slowly stop bubbling instead of what it did. Hopefully no worries. I plan to transfer to a glass carboy this Sunday. Thanks again.
I actually taped the bulb of the stat to the side of the fermenter this morning to get a more accurate reading. So that reading was initially ambient temp. I shot the side of the fermenter with an infrared thermometer and it was a bit warmer about 72º. I probably should have either taped that bulb to the side or put it in a bottle of water. Thanks.
