No Smell In Airlock, flavorless Beer?

This is my first batch and first post!!!!Im brewing a pumpin ale from arbor beer and wine kit.a few questions.I have almost no smell coming out of airlock,will i have a flavorless beer(4 days in primary,almost done fermenting-sour smell first couple of days).I have a secondary,should i use it(everyone seems to have a different opinion). will my beer taste almost the same after 1 week as it will when finished?If so and its bland can i add spices to secondary(nutmeg ect.)p.s used canned pumpkin.THANKS

Welcome to HBT!

Smells and flavors during fermentation have nothing to do with the finished beer. Some yeast makes for smelly fermentation and some doesn't. Your beer goes through many different taste stages before it is carbonated and aged.

You just have noob nerves....you can't judge anything by airlock sniifing....

If a company made "flavorless beer kits" do you really think they'd last in business?

Your beer is fine just relax.

If your first beer is a pumpkin and you added pumpkin during the boil, along with spices...you beer is most definitley NOT "almost finished fermenting" after 4 days.

Your going to need AT LEAST 2 weeks in primary, there's a lot of stuff in there that the yeast needs to tackle, and it needs to clean up after itself as well....and if you added the pumpkin boil, you will need to use a secondary for at least another two weeks to clear it, maybe a tad longer.

Higher gravity beers take longer. And especially with pumpkin and the spices. Take a hydrometer reading on the 12th and the 14th day and see if the gravity is still the same, and if it is within the tatget final gravity range....if it is still high, you may have to warm of the fermenter a bit and give it a swirl to get the yeast active, for another couple weeks before moving to secondary.

Even after bottling, pumpkin beers need a few extra weeks for all the flavors and spices to marry each other....they are not beers that are "ready" to drink really quick, they are pretty complex beers.

Last year, I brewed my Pumpkin Ale for Thanksgiving on Labor Day...figuring at 8 weeks, I MIGHT have some ready for Holloween...But they were still green, so I only brought a couple to my annuual Halloween thingy, along with a sampler of commercial pumpkins...BUT come Turkey Day the beer was fantastic, and was a hit at the holiday.

For many beers it's a game of patience, but you will be greatly rewarded by your patience.

+1 for using a secondary with this one...but like revvy said, give it at least 2-4 weeks in the primary

WOW,thanks for the quick responses!!!being that todays nov 21 lookes like my brew wont be ready for christmas,bummer!I guess Ill have to get a few more carboys to keep the brew flowin after waiting for first batch

Yeah, sorry, even if you do 14 days primary and 14 days secondary, you will pretty much just be bottling it around Christmas.

But, especially with a pumpkin ale, you shouldn't just arbitrarily move it without taking grav readings. In Mr Wizard's colum in BYO a few months back he made an interesting analogy about brewing and baking....He said that egg timers are all well and good in the baking process but they only provide a "rule of thumb" as to when something is ready...recipes, oven types, heck even atmospheric conditions, STILL have more bearing on when a cake is ready than the time it says it will be done in the cook book. You STILL have to stick a toothpick in the center and pull it out to see if truly the cake is ready.....otherwise you may end up with a raw cake....

Not too different from our beers....We can have a rough idea when our beer is ready (or use something silly like the 1-2-3 rule (which doesn't factor in things like yeast lag time or even ambient temp during fermentation) and do things to our beer willy nilly....but unless we actually stick "our toothpick" (the hydrometer) in and let it tell us when the yeasties are finished...we too can "f" our beer up.

SO make sure it is finished before you move it to a secondary for clearing.

After My First Post Ive Been Looking Up Kegging.it Seems As If I Keg My Brew It Will Be More Or Less Ready In 2 Days Or So After Kegging.is There Any Neg Affect On Not Letting It Sit For 3 Weeks In Bottles.seems Everyone Thinks Kegging Is Better.i Have No Problem Letting Brew Cure In Keg And Take The Occational Sip!,and I Already Have The Equipment( Basicly)

JONNYROTTEN said:

After My First Post Ive Been Looking Up Kegging.it Seems As If I Keg My Brew It Will Be More Or Less Ready In 2 Days Or So After Kegging.is There Any Neg Affect On Not Letting It Sit For 3 Weeks In Bottles.seems Everyone Thinks Kegging Is Better.i Have No Problem Letting Brew Cure In Keg And Take The Occational Sip!,and I Already Have The Equipment( Basicly)

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You will find that only impatient noobs keg their beer for 2 days and think it's drinkable. Most experienced brewers who keg, condition for a couple weeks in the keg before hooking up to the gas, chilling and drinking it.

Most brewers with experience understand that we're not making koolaid here annd pateince is rewarded with GREAT beer.

And NOT EVERYONE thinks kegging is BETTER. You will find as you get more experience that there really is no "BETTER" in brewing...it's purely a matter of preference.

Many prefer the taste of bottle conditioned beers over kegs anyway. And many keggers bottle certain beers while kegging others. They mostly bottle big beers that they know needs to age.

You'llalso find that many folks who "claim" kegging is better that bottling say that because they only tried to bottle the way it says in books, rather than altering the bottling process to make it easier. You'll find many tips from lots of people who prefer to bottle, in here;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/

bottling is slower so i tend to avoid it. otherwise its the same.

Kegging is convenient but no matter how soon you can carbonated it, green beer is green beer and doesn't taste that good. Three weeks in the bottle does more than just carbonate, it ages the beer.