Hi guys, I have started my first batch and it seemed to be going well. It started bubbling viciously after about 6-8 hours and had a Krausen formed. Then after about 24 hours all bubbling has stopped, I don't know if this is right or if I have messed up. Any advice would be appreciated TIA
You have done nothing wrong, that's what yeast do. Here's a graph showing their activity, note times are approximate: Also note, just because your krausen has dropped doesn't mean the yeasties are finished. Rather, the conditioning phase has started. It's a long read, but here how that takes place: https://www.morebeer.com/articles/conditioning Consider letting it conditon 7-10 days. A slight rise in temp won't hurt in helping clean up any diacetyl. Somewhere around 5 days you may want to take a gravity reading, followed up ~3 days later. Welcome to the hobby.
Brilliant thanks for the info. My wife got me a brooklyn brewshop kit for Christmas and the instructions are pretty vague with little information. Thanks again
Welcome to the BA site, Popey, and to the Homebrewing forum. Hang around as much as you'd like - this is a great place to learn as well as get help when facing issues. Yeast can do their job quickly, and especially so if the fermentation occurs in an environment that is warmish. If your fermentor is located where it is too warm you can experience some off-flavors in the beer, so fermentation temperature control is close to the top of the list of important things to control as the brewer. Let the conditioning phase occur as @PortLargo said above. During this period the yeast slowly finish the active fermentation and also clean up some 'waste' that they created while doing their job, so it is important not to get anxious to proceed to bottling/kegging. In 7-8 days, take a gravity reading if you have a hydrometer, followed by another reading in a couple more days. These readings will confirm that fermentation is finished if both numbers are the same (or very close) as well as letting you know that you hit the predicted Final Gravity given by your recipe. If you are far from the predicted FG then you have a stuck fermentation, and that's another issue. Good luck on finishing up your beer. Let us know how it turns out.
Just to confirm: that is a 1 gallon batch, correct? How much yeast did you pitch (i.e., how many grams)? Pitching a lot of yeast into 1 gallon of wort could result in completion of primary fermentation fairly quickly. I personally have no experience brewing this small of a batch (I brew the typical amount of 5 gallons). Cheers!
