Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Fermenation of Batch #1

The airlock was bubbling like crazy on Sunday morning and continued all day long. I assume it also bubbled well into Sunday night and Monday but by the time I got home Monday evening it had either ceased entirely or slowed to an amount that was no longer noticeable at a glance. I had expected it to bubble and ferment through tonight (Wednesday) but it looks like that didn't happen.  Since this is my first batch I don't yet know if this is ok or will mean that the beer will not turn out right in the end.  For now, I will just move forward as I would have otherwise.

Another possible issue that I ran into that I hope ends up being nothing much: the first 12-18 hours of fermentation I had the bucket sitting on the kitchen counter.  In the winter, we keep the thermostat at 68 degrees so I figured it should be well within range of what ale yeast requires. However, the temperature hovered around 76-78 degrees the whole time.  On Sunday evening I moved the bucket (will moving the bucket disturb anything?) to the floor in a corner near the kitchen. By the next day the temperature had cooled to 66-68 degrees as I had wanted.

Bottling is planned for Saturday after allowing for a few more days of settling. I can't wait...too bad it'll be a few more weeks still after that before first taste.

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