Worried about fermentation

[JCBREW]

Brewed my first batch 3/22/08 and as of this morning there is still bubbling in the air lock. Kit was a brewers best I.P.A. Temp is at a constant 70. Primary is a plastic bucket style so I cant see whats going on in there. Anybody have any thoughts.

Thanks

 

[Yooper]

Sounds fine to me! Some beers ferment out really quickly, and some take a week or even longer. As long as you're having fermentation, there is no reason to worry. Keep it at a stable temperature (it seems like you are) and walk away and check on it in a week or 10 days.

Edit- is the temperature of the room 70 degrees, or the temperature from the thermometer strip on the bucket at 70? 70 is ok, but you don't want it higher.

Being patient and waiting for it is definitely the hardest part of brewing!

 

[Revvy]

Sounds fine to me! Some beers ferment out really quickly, and some take a week or even longer. As long as you're having fermentation, there is no reason to worry. Keep it at a stable temperature (it seems like you are) and walk away and check on it in a week or 10 days.

Edit- is the temperature of the room 70 degrees, or the temperature from the thermometer strip on the bucket at 70? 70 is ok, but you don't want it higher.

Being patient and waiting for it is definitely the hardest part of brewing!

Ditto on this info...Patience is your friend.

 

[JCBREW]

Thanks

I just needed that vote of confidence. I think I will just brew another batch to keep my mind off it.

 

[Liquidicem]

Sounds perfectly fine to me. Just keep an eye on your temp. Fermentation can take a while. I have a Kolsch at home that is just about done fermenting now after 3 weeks in the primary.

 

[JCBREW]

Answer to temp question. The room temp is 70 (sensor is sitting on top of my bucket) . I do not have a strip thermometer on my bucket.

 

[Yooper]

I'm guessing then that the temperature inside your bucket is higher. I'd try to keep it no higher than 68, if that's possible. If not, don't worry.

The next time you have a chance, buy a thermometer strip. They are about $3 at a homebrew store, or you can buy an aquarium temperature strip for $2 at Walmart. The room temperature isn't really that important- it's the temperature of the wort that is important. Sometimes fermentation can get "hot" and the temperature inside the bucket can rise 8-10 degrees higher than the air temperature. That's probably not the case here- since it's slow and steady, you probably don't have a real problem with it, but for next time it'd be good to have that thermometer strip.

 

[JCBREW]

Its my lucky day - my wife just called from wal-mart and she now has an aquarium thermometer in her cart. I will rectify this problem as soon as I get home from work. Thanks for your help.

 

[Bobby_M]

You do know that as a new brewer, it's your job to insanely worry that you have the only environment on earth where a billion yeast cells can't figure out how to find all that sugar that they crave. ;-)

 

[Yooper]

Good luck with your brewing!

 

[Revvy]

You do know that as a new brewer, it's your job to insanely worry that you have the only environment on earth where a billion yeast cells can't figure out how to find all that sugar that they crave. ;-)

LOL!

 

[JCBREW]

You do know that as a new brewer, it's your job to insanely worry that you have the only environment on earth where a billion yeast cells can't figure out how to find all that sugar that they crave. ;-)

Thanks for putting that into prospective.

 

[JCBREW]

Update:

Waited 3 days and couldn't stand it any longer so I took a hydrometer reading last night. And the advice I recived from the great people on this forum was 100% correct. The SG was 1.055 the FG 1.014. No bubbling in the air lock but fermentation was still happening anyway (or I missed it while I was sleeping). From the knowledge I gathered from this forum the only thing I could have done differently was better aeration. Would this have encouraged more bubbling in the airlock? Thanks again to all that replied to this thread and helped me through this difficult time.

The only problem now is that I have had a taste.