So I have a question in regards to krausen. After my first caribou slobber batch that had a bit of a shaky start but ended up fine, I decided to pursue a couple of different brews. Unlike in my first batch, I’ve been getting really rigorous and healthy fermentation. I actually lost a gallon because the top on one of my carboys somehow got blown off by pressure and I didn’t realize it. It was literally an invisible gas build up - no blowoff to be seen.
Anyway, for my four remaining gallons the krausen has come and gone, but I’m interested to know if what the krausen left behind will effect my beer taste at all. One of my carboys got extremely full of krausen to the point where I was as far as I could possibly get without adding a blowoff tube. After it subsided, there was an incredibly thick layer of what I think is yeast and various other grains/malt proteins caked to the glass in the headspace of the carboy. I mean REALLY thick - I can’t even see the top of the wort through the stuff.
I’m fairly confident that my sanitation methods were adequate, but I’m concerned that the sludge caked to the glass has been getting funky. Even if it hasn’t, will this adversely effect the flavor if some of it gets knocked in when I go to bottle? Furthermore I planned on using a priming solution this time around made from corn sugar. Is there a way I can add this solution to my beer without washing all the nasties in?
I want to remove my airlock to smell it, but my gut tells me this would result in disastrous contamination if the sludge isn’t already contaminated.
The sludge does smell bad IMO – others like the smell. If chunks of sludge fall in the beer, they will simply sink to the bottom, no flavor impact. Where do you think the rest of the krausen went?
If the top comes off the fermenter for a while it is not disaster. Just clean up and reseal. I’ve left the lid off a particularly violent bucket of Hefe for several hours waiting for it to subside enough to reseal.
You must rack to a bottling bucket to add the priming sugar solution. Adding the priming solution to the fermentor, and then stirring to mix, will bring up the trub. The trub will settle out in each bottle. Would make a nasty looking glass of beer when some of it comes out in the pour.
Ewww, yes. This is absolutely correct; I missed that detail in the OP.
I’ve never done a 1 gal batch and only just scaled down to 2.5. I would think that for a 1-gal batch sticking with the drops would be best. A bottling bucket is a royal PITA for that last 6-pack, and if all you’re getting is 8 or 9…
I suppose you could eye-drop corn syrup directly to each bottle, but consistency would be tough. Might get a mix of duds and bombs.
Thanks for the information guys. I’ll be sure to set up a bottling bucket. My setup is a little strange in that I have five 1-gallon carboys. With my current batch, I had one carboy with an Irish Red Ale and four with a weizen brew. I’m down to three gallons of the weizen after losing the one gallon. The gallon that I lost had a plastic cap that ruptured in an odd way so that I didn’t notice until several days later. I only caught it because the krausen had subsided on the other four carboys and the broken seal carboy still had a very sludgy, somewhat unhealthy looking krausen on it still.
A lamentable loss, but I figured it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to bottle a gallon of beer that was most likely super disgusting.
