My First Brew- Some Fermenting Questions

I have looked through some of the links on this forum already to see if there was an answer to my question- however I did not find anything. I will apologize in advance if this is a repeat.


My first brew, a Honey Wiezen extract kit. A LOT of activity overnight, I used a blow off valve and had a lot of foam running up through that. Overall seemed to be going very well for the first 24-36 hours with a lot of activity. I'm supposed to leave this brew in my primary for 1-2 weeks, then my secondary for 2 more.

At 48 hours there seemed to be a large slowing of the bubbles coming off and the foam has fallen back into the beer (from what I can tell- there's a lot of sediment stuck on the top of the carboy from the foam). I took a hydrometer reading of 1.010 at 48 hours (I goofed the initial reading, so I don't really have a start point unfortunately). I took a swig of the test beer and had a hard time determining if it had a sour taste to it (worried about infection at first, however it was warm at room temp, obviously not carbonated, and very young). What does a "bad beer" taste like? It seemed hard to tell for me since it was so warm... who actually thinks warm beer tastes "good", besides those Englishmen!


Is it unusual to have fermentation virtually appear "stopped" at 48 weeks? I am aware that no bubbles does not equal end of fermentation, but a hydrometer reading of 1.010 seems pretty low for just 48 hours later and makes me wonder if it's stopped. Reading so many people having trouble with their beers not showing signs of fermentation for the first 48 hours, here I am with virtually the exact opposite problem, which has me scratching my head

Again, I am very new to this whole thing and it's my first beer so I'm sure you can all understand my concerns.

Thanks for responding kindly and not treating this like "another annoying did I ruin it" thread

Sounds like an unusually fast fermentation, what was the temperature and what yeast was used? Barring any more info, you should RDWHAHB and step away from the beer, the yeast know how to make it.

Wheat beers tend to ferment fast and furious. I usually don't put Wheat beers into a secondary because, in my opinion, you don't want to clear it too much. The foam is supposed to fall back into the beer, so don't worry about that.

With my Wheat Beers, I let them sit in the primary for 2-3 weeks, then go straight to the bottle.