Fermentation - Fast and Furious

My first batch. Brown ale kit by TrueBrew. I rehydrated and primed the yeast according to Palmer. I used Coopers dry but an 11 gm. package and not the smaller package provided. Pitched yeast at about 70 - 75F. Four or five hours after pitching it took off and almost blew out the air lock. I caught it in time and put it a vent tube. Temp got up to about 80 but it cooled down slowly to 72 after I put it in a tub of water. It continued bubbleing all night at a good rate but then tapered off to nothing after 24 to 26 hours. Fast and furious fermentation!

I want to know if this within the range of normal. From what I have read it should last longer.

Man- it smells good already.

I've had beers pretty much ferment out in a day or 2. Be sure to check the Final Gravity of your beer against the recipe to make sure fermentation is done to the point you want it to be at. Bubbles (or lack thereof) aren't an accurate indicator of completed fermentation.

Some ale yeast will ferment very quickly, 72 hours for a primary ferment isnt unheard of, and espically at a warmer tempurature. It also depends on your gravity if you have a medium to low gravity wort then it will take even less time for the yeast to consume the sugars. I made a cider that finished primary fermentation in 3 days, I used safale-04 dry ale yeast, og 1.051, 3 days layter it was 1.002 so it shows to go ya. Good luck.

This sounds normal to me. Just because it stopped bubbling doesn't mean the yeast are done though! They have a lot more work to do cleaning up after themselves. You should wait at least two, preferably three, weeks before you bottle this, even if you don't see any visible signs of fermentation.

Thanks for the imput. The OG was 1.044 right on the money. I'll check it again in a week. I'm already planning my next batch.

aside: Are there any recipes for 3 gallon batches?

For a 3 gallon batch just take the ingredients for a 5-6 gallon batch and cut them in 2/3rds you really cant mess up. As long as there is hops, malt, and yeast it should make beer.