Fermentation from High to low after 2 days?!

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xattamrs

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I brewed a batch of beer on saturday, had a nice krausen on sunday with lots of action in the airlock. I get home from work today and the krausen is clearing and there was little to no activity in the airlock. I took off the air lock and dropped in a thermometer to see the temp of the wort (73 degrees) I moved it to a bit cooler place. Is this normal or should I be concerned about this batch? my original gravity was 1.050 and expected final is 1.012 I didn't take a hydrometer reading as I figured it was to early. Also will there be any issues with me removing the air lock this early in the fermentation stage?
 
Re-sanitize the airlock before you put it back on. If you didn't before I would go ahead and pop the top again (gently) and spray some Star-San on it, then re-cap. What kind of yeast did you use? This way we can see if your within your yeast's temp range, but as it sits right now, it just sounds like you had a nice active fermentation although your temp may be a tad high. I'd give your beer 3-4 weeks in your primary then take your gravity reading.
 
First off, you're jumping the gun. You need to allow your beers to sit for a few weeks before worrying about it. The airlock is NOT a good way of checking whether it's fermenting or not. Even if it's not bubbling, the yeasties could still be hard at work.

As for your temps...depending on your style, it's probably fine. For future reference, it's not recommended that you move a fermenter from a warm enviornment to cold. If it's going from cold to warm, it's fine. Unless it's a lager, just let it finish out at the higher temps or you'll risk confusing the yeast into settling out early.

As for your krausen...some yeasts work fast, some don't.
 
Yeast was Safale US-05
I figured I was jumping the gun. The optimum temp is 59 - 75 according to the packaging. I I did sanitize everything when checking what was going on. I moved the fermenter to cool it down to 65-70 degrees as I thought maybe I was to high and the heat vent was over it.
 
I'd recommend getting a cheap stick-on thermometer (called a fermometer) for the outside of your fermenter so you don't have to open it to check temps, and you can monitor it during the most vigorous part of fermentation with just a glance. They have them at homebrew stores, or you can use an aquarium thermometer from Wal-Mart if it goes down to 62-64 degrees or so.

I'd wait a week or two, then check the SG. It's not uncommon to have beers ferment that fast, though- I've had a couple that literally fermented out overnight! It's still a good idea to give it a little time to finish up the last little bit, and then the yeast are still working "cleaning up" after themselves. After the fermentable sugars are gone, the yeast actually digest their own waste products (like diacetyl) before becoming dormant.
 
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