it varies, but here's what's been going on for me, generally.
Within 12-36 hours your airlock should start bubbling pretty good. If you look closely you should see the yeast churning around in the fermentor (maybe not for you since you're using a plastic bucket, though) You should get a rocky krausen head at this point.
Within a week you're bubbling rate should be way down, like once or twice a minute. There will be a layer of sediment on the bottom of your fermentor. If you are using a secondary, then this is the time to move it. You're krausen head will have gone way down, often-times it's almost totally gone.
After you move it to secondary (if you decide to) then after a couple weeks your beer will have cleared up quite a bit. Usually after 2-3 weeks it's time to bottle.
Hi, After many years of drinking beer I thought it would be fun to brew my own, having followed the instructions on how to brew, I mixed my extract with water, added yeast, put plastic bucket in warm area 70degs, after 24 hrs it's a nice brown colour, smells ok but only a few spots on the top, question, what should I expect to see and at what time scales, am I being too eager at this stage, I thought I would see bubbles and foam... Thanks.
