Fast Primary Fermentation?

I bottled my first batch of dunkelweizen a week ago and had a bottle or 2 this weekend and it was great! I started a second batch last Monday, the Dry Irish Stout from NB. I put it into the primary on Monday the 31st and by Friday night there was no activity and the foam had retreated. This was only about 5 days so I moved it to the secondary last night and as of this morning am seeing no activity in the air lock. Could this be a problem?

4 or 5 days is perfectly reasonable. I think I've only ever had 2 or 3 batches in my life that had a primary fermenation that lasted longer than 5 days. Most of mine are in the 3 to 5 day range.

-walker

Doesn't sound at all out of line to me. My active fermentations in the primary generally fall between 3 to 9 days depending on the recipe and the temperature. You could take a gravity reading and see if it's in line with the predicted FG of the recipe.

My first batch (also using an Irish Ale yeast) took 22 hours from pitching to essentially finish primary fermentation. I left it in the bucket for a few extra days just to be safe, but there was nothing wrong with it in terms of incomplete fermentation. Of course it was my first effort so I can't say it was perfect in all other respects :-D

i have had fast fermintations as well, 24 hours for my imperial stout. it was 10% ABV. i let it sit in there for the rest of the week though.

I just had a barley wine go from 1092 to 1030 in 36 hours. Moved it to a secondary after five days and saw a bubble every 20 minutes or so. Two weeks later, it's at 1028.