When your brewing your first batch you want to make sure you did it correctly and that your wort is fermenting away and turning into great tasting beer. However, if you have never brewed before you might not know how to tell if your beer is actually fermenting.  

So we wanted to discuss some ways you can tell if your beer is fermenting away as it should.  

In the first 72 hours of fermentation is when you will see the most action in your brew. After that it will look like not much is going on, but rest assured your little yeasts are still working away eating up all those complex sugars that are left!  

There are two main things that we tell our customers to look for if they are unsure if their beer is fermenting or not.  

The first would be if you see some bubbles or foam on the top of your beer in the fermenter. This will be most noticeable in the first 72 hours.  

It is referred to as krausen. Once the primary stage of fermentation is over this will usually go away.  

The next thing to check for is to look at the bottom of your fermenter and look for any type of sediment build-up. This build-up is called Trub.  

Trub is a byproduct of the fermentation process and is a sign that you got a good fermentation going.  

These are the main two ways to check if your beer is fermenting by just looking at it.  

One other way to check would be if you are using a hydrometer you can just take a reading if you are unsure. If the gravity reading is lower than your starting gravity then you are good to go.  

Cheers,  

Robert