First time brewing unsure if fermentation is going well?

[mackem82]

Hey guys it's my first time brewing I bought a brew cellar kit and made my first brew on Monday however I checked on it today and there is a slight air leak coming from the grommet in the top? Will this affect my brew? Also what should I be looking for as far as colour goes with the stages of brewing? At the moment there's a slight layer of foam at the top and what looks like a lot of sediment at the bottom? Is this normal?

Cheers

 

[philmud]

All sounds pretty normal to me, how big is this leak? It's fine if it's just allowing gas to escape, but you don't want nasties getting in

 

[gsouth82]

Sounds normal to me too.
Do a hydrometer test on the weekend to see how your fermentation is tracking. Once you taking the reading, have a taste.
The CO2 that's produced during fermentation is heavier than oxygen so your brew should have a nice protective layer on top of it.
If you're still worried about just take a hydrometer reading, ensure its the same over a couple of days and get it in the bottle.
Or alternatively, don't stress, leave it to do its thing for a couple of weeks before bottling. A lot of folks on here use glad wrap instead of a lid (held on with the o-ring from the lid). your small leak wouldn't be any worse than a glad wrap lid. Using glad wrap is a fine way of going about it, heaps of people do it and they don't have issues.
Let us know how you get on.

 

[mackem82]

It's a very small leak I only noticed it when I put some water into the airlock and some water dropped on to the grommet and started bubbling.

 

[Feldon]

At the moment there's a slight layer of foam at the top and what looks like a lot of sediment at the bottom? Is this normal?

Welcome mackern80,

Ditto to the above.

The stuff on the bottom is yeast. Yep, that small amount of dry yeast you added has multiplied (its a living organism - trillions of single-celled, microscopic critters) and a lot of them are now sleeping at the bottom of the vessel. Others are up in solution actively fermenting your wort - ie. chomping through the sugars that were in the tin of 'goop' + water + anything else you added (its generally pronounced wert). Yeast are our friends.

One of the by-products of fermentation, as you no doubt know, is alcohol. Another is carbon dioxide (CO2) gas. This bubbles up and causes the foam (or krausen) you see on top of your brew. It'll grow bigger before subsiding after a few days as fermentation comes towards an end. But don't be fooled into thinking its finished fermenting just because its stopped foaming. Use your hydrometer to determine when its done its thing and ready for bottling.

 

[superstock]

Pull your airlock out and on the sides of the tit you will feel a feather on both sides from the molding. Scrape these off back to the main body. Reinsert back into grommet-- leak should be fixed.