Is it normal if your Yeast works off and on?

Hi all. Brewed a Belgium Wit yesterday. Finished at 4PM and stuck it in the fermentor. Today at 10ish AM I noticed it bubbling at a pretty steady rate.. once every 5-7 seconds.

I noticed it was pretty cold (64 degrees in my basement) so I stuck a small space heater next to it to warm it up a bit. I believe Wit's need to be around 70 if I'm not mistaken.

The temp now reads 68ish and the bubbling has ceased. Maybe it warmed up too fast or maybe I'm just being over paranoid?

Bubbling does not equate to fermentation. My first beer I freaked out because it wasn't bubbling 36 hrs later. I then pushed down on the little white button cap on the carboy cap and the airlock started going bonkers. There was enough of a gap to let the gas out when it really got going and bypassed the airlock completely. I'm sure Revvy will be here to tell you in a second that the only sure way to know if you're fermenting is taking successive hydrometer samples.

That being said, if you're using real Wit yeast like WLP400 or Wyeast 3944, then 70 is too high IMO. That's pretty phenolic yeast, you'll get plenty of yeast character in the mid 60's.

solidsolo said:

The temp now reads 68ish and the bubbling has ceased. Maybe it warmed up too fast or maybe I'm just being over paranoid?

Click to expand...

The latter You probably just knocked the airlock.