Fermentation question

[coviner]

Alright, so I followed an extract based oatmeal stout recipe to the letter, took careful care to keep everything sterile, pitched my Irish Ale yeast at a temp of 70 degrees (which was on the high side for the strain from the info I have gathered, but still within it's optimum range), and stored the beer in a closet near my thermostat. The beer was in the fermentor and capped at about 7 PM CT on Friday night. My initial gravity reading was at about 1.050

I noticed very active fermentation by the time I returned home from work, which was about 4 AM CT. Constant bubbles, very foamy, etc.

Flash forward to Sunday, fermentation had slowed considerably by about 4 AM, still bubbling about 8-10 times a minute but a very thin layer of foam.

About 15 minutes ago, I took my second gravity reading and it tested out at about 1.014. This falls into the finished gravity range in the recipe. There is less foam than yesterday and I am only seeing bubbles about once every 25-30 seconds now. We have maintained the beer at a constant 70 degrees.

It couldn't have possibly fermented this quickly, right? If no, what do I do?

 

[TipsyDragon]

obviously it did finish that quickly if your in your target FG range. wait till 2 weeks from brew day then check your SG. wait another 3 days and check again. if its the same then your done and can bottle.

 

[masonsjax]

Depending on lots of factors, yes, the major activity can finish quickly. The yeast are still busy, and will be for a while. Don't touch it for another 3 weeks, then bottle or keg it.

 

[coviner]

obviously it did finish that quickly if your in your target FG range. wait till 2 weeks from brew day then check your SG. wait another 3 days and check again. if its the same then your done and can bottle.

Right on. Thank you, I learned something new today.