No airlock activity question from a noob

Check your gravity now. If it hasn't dropped taste it and if it's still OK pitch yeast if needed. My guess is that it is fermented and you're just leaking gas somewhere on your bucket.

 

The experienced home brewers here can do a lot to ease angst. They did for me in a similar experience, although I wasn't going to secondary. If interested you can read about it HERE.
Good luck

 

You're good

 

Correct! Krausen only forms if fermentation is happening. Go ahead and open the lid if your not sure, as it will not ruin your beer to open once or twice (especially if fermentation is happening).

So sit back and relax. I wouldn't even bother checking gravity yet. I only check gravity once or twice after fermentation starts.

 

How much yeast did you pitch? How much 1.050 wort did you make? What temp did you pitch? Did you aerate?

I agree with above. Krausen is sign of fermentation, could check gravity, I would imagine it’d be around 1.030ish on day 3.

Don’t worry about taking lid off (as long as everything sanitary) until after fermentation dies down.

 

I'm kind of hoping that's a typo. Pitching at 82F is too hot for about any yeast strain I can think of. Not that it will hurt the yeast, but it's likely to create off-flavors (particularly fusel alcohols) with most strains. What yeast did you use?

 

That's not good, but wouldn't the yeast become highly active at the start, and IF the wort cooled to proper temp within some hours, there would be hardly any "bad" alcohol? Maybe not enough for most people to detect. Regardless, hopefully it did not stay at such a high temp for very long.

 

Might be ok for rehydration of dry yeast, but as already mentioned too warm for pitching most yeast...this is why Summer can be a horrible time to brew unless you are prepared for the higher temps.

 

The problem is that at high temps such as 82F, everything is accelerated, including the lag time, so this fermentation was more than likely off to the races. Depending on ambient temperature (OP is in Georgia), that 82F might not come down much at all, and it might peak even higher. 5 gallons of wort has a lot of thermal mass...ask anyone who uses the kettle-in-a-sink-of-ice-water method to cool. At room temp, cooling would be exponentially slower.

 

I might have missed it but didn't see anything about how large your wort was. As vikeman alluded, the factors matter. I wonder how quickly it cooled down. I mean, this is your 5th batch, maybe with the same yeast at the same pitch temp, so do you know what to expect here?

Reminds me of how hard it is to allow the wort to cool! I used to get impatient. I cool mine outside (lower temps here) before pitching and I find myself constantly checking the temp. That exponential decrease is killer!

 

Unless you are using a yeast that does well at high temps, kveik comes to mind, you are going to run the risk of fusel alcohols(hot alcohols) being produced, with attendant off flavors.
A lot of the temperature ranges on the packages of even the best yeast providers are largely BS. You'll make beer at those temps but not great beer. Maybe not even good. Most vet home brewers will tell you that 62-68* F is a much better range for the first 3-5 days of fermentation.

 

Safale is a brand, not a strain. i.e. there are many (or at least several) strains from Safale. Do you know which one(s) you've been using?

Yikes. Does the package actually say to pitch once you get to 80F?

For your next batch, I'd recommend posting the recipe (or at least the style) here, along with the strain to be used, and ask for recommendations for pitching and fermentation temps, until you get a feel for it.

 

Given where you live, if you stick with this hobby, you're probably going to be looking for a solution to get chilling done in a reasonable time.

Do you have a utility sink? Or a large bucket? A great way to get faster chill times with an immersion chiller is to use a cheap pond pump to move ice water from a sink/bucket, through the chiller, and back into the sink bucket. (i.e. recycle it.) Just chill the normal way (water only) until the chilling begins to slow noticeably, then switch to ice water.