First brew in bucket

[FSumac]

I'll say it again...NO...you can't assume anything with beer...except that the yeast know what they are doing....if you can see that head has formed that means fermentation is occuring regardless of airlock activity....

One more time...you can't judge whether or not fermentation is happenning via the bubbling of the airlock, or lack of bubbling you can tell that only with the hydrometer...

Walk away from wherever your fermenter is sitting and come back in a week and take your hydrometer reading. You beer is fine, it's not a weak newborn baby, it doesn't need to be mother henned.

I have had beers that fermented beacutifully without one bubble in the airlock, and I have had others that sounded like a machine gun from the get go, and I have had others that needed a blow off tube...each beer is different....

the airlock is just to vent out the carbon dioxide to keep the lid from the fermenter, and to prevent stuff from getting it....get out of the mindset of thinking airlock bubbling equals fermentation....

Ok, this is reassuring. I am a newbie and my first beer has been in the fermenter for about 27 hours now and I have had very few bubbles. I used Munton's dry yeast that came with the kit and re-hydrated it according to John Palmer's method. The temp started out around 70 and has been at 72 now all day.

 

[TheFlatline]

Ok, this is reassuring. I am a newbie and my first beer has been in the fermenter for about 27 hours now and I have had very few bubbles. I used Munton's dry yeast that came with the kit and re-hydrated it according to John Palmer's method. The temp started out around 70 and has been at 72 now all day.

It can take up to 3 days (72 hours) for fermentation to really start. If you have an issue with this, look into building or buying a stirplate and starting liquid yeast starters. You'll usually have fermentation begin within a handful of hours.

First batch I made, we had fermentation start within 12 hours or so and at it's peak a day or two later, I was getting 3 bubbles a second. My second beer took 2 days to start fermenting. My hefe took 3 days, and then when I thought it was "done", there was a huge cloud of floating yeast on top of the hefe. The hydrometer said it was done, but I left it in the primary for 2 weeks and ended up happy with the results.

Beer, even the same beer with the same style yeast, can have wildly different fermentations.