Fermentation stopped after 2 days?
 

I brewed a batch of extract beer on friday, within hours the airlock was bubbling like crazy and now 2 days later i dont see anymore bubbles...is that bad? do i have leak? could it really be done? what can i do? thanks

What should/can you do??? How about RDWHAHB??

Give it a couple more weeks, then bottle/keg it up and carbonate it... There are so many threads about this, it's not even funny. Look at the "Similar Threads" listing at the bottom of the page.

Not necessarily.

Maybe.

Yes.

Not much. You can check the gravity with a hydrometer if you really want to know if its done, but that doesn't do much other than satisfy your curiosity.

If it *IS* done fermenting, its possible you had a warm ferment or a big pitch of yeast that allowed them to chew through the sugars quickly. If you fermented warm, you may want to consider keeping the temp down a bit next time around.

you're welcome.

;)

Thanks a lot for ur tips. I checked the gravity and before fermentation i had 1.052 and the gravity now is 1.014 giving me just about 5% abv. Now my question is, if it's done then when should I start bottling? right away or give it a couple of days?

Give it 2 weeks before bottling. Some might say 1 week. Some might say 3. Whatever you choose, I wouldn't bottle yet.

I try to wait three weeks before bothering it at all, no matter what the airlock bubbles do.

ok, why should i wait so long? does it improve the beer?

I won't bottle/keg ANYTHING that's less than 3 weeks from when the yeast was pitched, or went active. Just because it could be done fermenting (you need to CONFIRM the FG by taking another SG reading 2-4 days from the first one, IF it matches, you could be at FG) doesn't mean it's ready for bottle/keg.

Best thing you can do is drink the gravity sample to see what it tastes like. Do that for any gravity sample you pull. It will help you to learn how to tell when something is actually ready for bottle/keg.

BTW, I keg now. Even when I bottled, I wouldn't bottle before it was otherwise ready for glass (except needing to be carbonated). This has done extremely well for me. It does mean you need to be PATIENT, but you already knew that. You're not going to get great beer from bottling it too soon (or kegging it too soon). At best, you'll be drinking green beer. At worst, you'll have bottle bombs. Look up both terms to see what they are.

Yes. Active fermentation may have ended, but there's still more work for the yeast to do. They will "clean up" and get rid of some things that would otherwise cause off flavors.

just wait. I have had mine start 12 hours later and stop a day later and turned out perfect