First Brew, No Bubbles in Airlock After 40 Hours

No bubbles might just mean that your bucket has a leak, so the gas is escaping elsewhere. Krausen is a good sign. But if you really want to know...wait for it...take a gravity reading.

 

My recommendation is to put the lid back on, wait a total of two weeks from when you pitched, and measure the gravity. Then measure again 3 days later. And don't count bubbles.

 

If the yeast has produced krausen, it would be of little use to take a gravity reading now, it is fermenting. Wait 2 weeks then take a gravity reading, just don't take the lid off until after you have transferred it to bottling bucket.

 

As MCBanjoMike said, Krausen is a good sign. From the look of that pic, you definitely had activity regardless of bubbles. The airlock is never a good indicator of anything. Its totally possible that a lot of that activity happened while you weren't even able to observe. Unless you are a robot that never sleeps which you obviously aren't, because you asked this question.... or is this some elaborate robot ruse?

No, of course not... Now do what Vikeman said.

 

For God's sake, get the lid back on the bucket!!!! Aaahhhhh!

 

Just to throw it out there...no reason to transfer a Pale Ale to secondary. Just throw those dry-hops right into primary

 

There are many ways to do dry-hopping, schedules and such. If it were me, I'd dry-hop at the end of two weeks, for 5-7 days...and then bottle. So, that would be 3 weeks in primary, total. Of course, this should all be done in conjunction with gravity readings.

Like I said, though, there are many ways to do it...but just remember that time is the enemy of hops. That and oxidation...but you catch my drift.

 

A little early for this. He has a leak whether it's in the lid or he does not have enough liquid in the air lock. Once you see yeast activity there is no need to check gravity before 2 weeks unless doing a D-rest.

 

I stand corrected!

 

I would definitely wait it out, do a gravity reading after 2 weeks, and if the FG isn't low enough, you can always add more S-04 to finish it off. Did you do a yeast starter? May be a stuck fermentation.. ? but that's just a guess.