first time brew

[tubby thumper]

Hello everybody- I'm new to all this. Been thinking about giving home brewing a go for a while after developing a taste for real ales after a mis-spent lager driven youth! Finally got round to it and set up my first brew yesterday. By the evening the airlock was bubbling away 4/5 time a minute. I had to move it later on- my wife said I never took as much care when our children were new born- ahem! Since then the airlock has virtually stopped bubbling- I just wondered if this is normal- maybe the seal on the bucket shifted when I moved it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Algernon]

Airlocks are fickle beasts. So far as I can tell they are there to make a nice noise while yeast ferments. As you point out, the lid may have loosened when you moved it, or moving it may have swirled the yeast up so it all finished off faster.
Some people don't even use airlocks at all.

It is unlikely to have finished fermenting yet - you could always give the edge of the lid a good push downwards to check the seal, but to be honest there's no need, as long as it is tight enough to prevent beerflies getting in it.

General rule is to leave it a week, take a gravity sample, give it another 2 days and on the 3rd day check again. If the results are very similar or the same then it is done. Give it a further week to let the yeast clear up all its waste products (makes the beer taste better, despite what the kit might have you believe about drinking beer within 2 weeks). Once that has happened you can rack it to a pressure barrel or bottle it.

Do bear in mind that on rare occasions beer takes longer than 2 weeks just to ferment, not usually at these temperatures though. The real key is in the hydrometer readings.

Welcome to brewing and best of luck with it all :

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome.

 

[tubby thumper]

Thats grand-thanks for the advice and the welcome! The beer kit says 4-6 days to ferment but I think I'll follow your advice-want my first brew 2 b a good un!

 

[Algernon]

I forgot to mention, once it is racked or bottled, it needs more time to actually condition into something tasty and nice. In bottles it will need a week in the warm and a couple of weeks in the cool. Have a quick search on the forum for "priming" to find out a little more.
This thread should be helpful too, if you haven't read it yet:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=24822

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[tubby thumper]

Thanks for the thread link-very very helpful!