Hefeweizen fermentation

[mrcej23]

Hello everyone. I'm new to brewing and to this site. I brewed my first beer this past Friday morning. It is a Bavarian Hefeweizen recipe from northern brewer. The brewing process went pretty well I think. But I have a question pertaining to fermentation. The night of the Friday I brewed it, bubbles began to come through the airlock (which is really just a tube going into a glass of water) then by Saturday, the day after brew day, bubbles were steadily coming through there, like every second or two. However by the end of Saturday and all day today, the bubbles have really slowed down, only coming through every 20 seconds or so if I had to guess. And when I shine a flashlight through the bucket, it appears as though everything has already sunk back down and the beer is now back at my original fill line. I can see where the remnants of the krausen are stuck to the side of the bucket. I followed all the instructions on the recipe and put in half a packet of yeast, but I think I may have accidentally put a tad more than half. So my question is, is it possible for it to be done fermenting only 2 and a half days later. I really don't think so because it says it takes 2 weeks. Or is it possible I did something to throw things off majorly? Just wanted to see what you guys had to say.

 

[flars]

Is this less than a five gallon batch? The major portion of the fermentation can be done in a few days especially if the temp was allowed to get to high for the yeast used.
The yeast are far from done though. Give the fermentation more time. Take a hydrometer reading at the end of ten days. Take another one three days later. If the temperature corrected readings are the same fermentation is complete. You are ready to bottle.
If you wait to bottle for another week sediments will have time to settle out and you will end up with the perfect cloudy hefe. Nothing bad will happen to your beer if you do not rush to bottling.

 

[m1batt1]

You pretty much described what most of my beers do during fermentation. They go crazy for the first 2-3 days and then slow down. Like flars said it's far from finished though. Follow the time frame he suggests and you should be good.

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[mrcej23]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention it's a 1 gallon batch. It's evident that it did have a lot of activity in the past few days because there is residue 3 or 4 inches above fill line stuck to the side of the bucket and it bubbled a lot for a while before it stopped. It just seemed weird to me based on all the research I did before starting the beer. I thought that the absence of bubbling and the fact that all the krausen has sunk to the bottom was a sign that fermentation was over. But I know it can't be finished already. I saw something similar to this situation on another forum and they told the guy to swirl the bucket every now and then to get the yeast going again. But I can't do that because the beer stuff is at home and I'm going to college tonight for 2 weeks. And I also don't have a hydrometer. The recipe instructions said fermentation should end after 2 weeks and I don't need a hydrometer. So should I be good if I just come home and bottle it after 2 weeks?

 

[m1batt1]

You SHOULD be. But no guarantees. Since you have no hydrometer its hard to be certain but it should be done and stable by then.

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[mrcej23]

Thanks. Hopefully it'll turn out good.

 

[mrcej23]

So it won't hurt it to sit on top of the trub in the fermenter for a couple weeks?

 

[m1batt1]

No it won't hurt anything. In fact it'll compact more and the beer will have time to clear out. Myself and a lot of people on here don't move the beer until at least 2-3 weeks in primary.

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