2 days in - blow off tube not bubbling

Two days ago I brewed my second one gallon batch of a chocolate milk stout. Instead of having it in a 1 gallon glass carboy like last time I decided to use a 2 gallon food grade bucket I bought from the bakery at Wal Mart. The first batch in the carboy was such an active fermentation that it began spewing out of the airlock after 12 hours.. so I hooked up a blow off tube that got the job done. I decided to put a blow off tub on this new batch but after two days the tube has no bubbles. I did only pitch half of the amount of yeast (S-04) to see if it wouldn't be as violent of a fermentation. I put my ear next to the bucket and could hear the batch fizzing a little so I know that it's at least fermenting a little.

Is this all normal and ok? Should I be worried?

 

Some buckets seal better than others. It sounds like your bucket isn't one where the lid seals very securely, so instead of CO2 coming out of the airlock it's escaping some other way. This isn't a big deal in my experience.

 

As long as it's doing something I wouldn't be concerned. Even same recipe and equipment over different batches can look different. I'd just let it sit for the appropriate time

 

I'm not overly concerned since I was already able to brew a batch of it already, but I hope it turns out. I think I am going to take the blow off tub out and put the airlock in and see if it bubbles. Thanks for the reassurance that it'll be ok.

EDIT: Just put an airlock on and it's bubbling away.😅

 

In that case, you probably have enough liquid in the blew off tub that the pressure needed to overcome the liquid depth exceeds the seal strength of the bucket lid, so it goes out that way instead.