Very Slow Fermentation

Hello everybody, this is my first post, and im writing about my first batch . I love beer, but there are no homebrew stores in my country, so I ordered a begginers kit from Amazon. I was making an American lager with the ingredients they sent me, and after I put the wort in the bucket, i had very active bubbles in the airlock the first 3 days. The 4th day the bubbles slowed down. The 5th day (today) i siphoned the beer into a carboy, and i see bubbles in the airlock in 4-4,5 minutes. I have read that if u get to bubbles in every 2 minutes or more, the beer is ready to bottle, but apparently I have a problem, because I was just getting ready to lager the beer for 2-3 weeks. I followed the steps in the book I got, and I got the temperatures right. Should i be worried by this activity? Thanks a lot for the help guys.

The only way of truly knowing where your beer is at in the fermentation process is by using a hydrometer. You would need to take as gravity reading. An airlock is not a good indicator of whether or not your beer is ready for bottling. With my beers I have had little to no airlock activity after 24 hours, but my gravity readings continue to drop. Follow the directions on the kit. There should be an estimated gravity for this brew (both OG and FG).

Welcome to the board and welcome to the hobby!

There's nothing to be worried about at all. You are right to plan to wait 3 weeks or more before bottling. If you wanted to make a "true" lager and actually lager it, you would wait much longer with the beer at cold temperatures, as that is what is involved in making a true lager. But many beginner kits come with "lager" ingredients that are really light ales, and I'm assuming you're working with one of those.

Regardless, this is one of the most frequently asked questions about here, and the simple answer is this: The bubbles in your airlock really don't tell you anything about when your beer is ready to bottle. The only way to know if the beer is "ready" is to measure gravity with a hydrometer and see that fermentation has stopped. That can happen in a few days to a week. But even after that happens, you will want to let the beer rest for at least another 2-3 weeks before bottling. You can do that in a carboy, like you've done, although many of us around here now just leave it in the primary fermenter for the full 3+ weeks.

Thanks guys, this has helped me a lot and drove out some of the fears I had. I'm looking forward to participate in the forum more in the future. Cheers!