My last two beers the Kreusan formed and was gone within several days. I decided to do a starter for my Kolsch as I was told it is a very clean beer and off flavors are more easily noticed. Wow, fermentation really started way faster, which didn’t surprise me. What surprises me is that I have had two or three inches of Kreusan from nearly the beginning and it is still there today, a week later.
This makes me wonder, what is typical? I assume there are tons of variables, but just wanted to know. Sorry, I know there is a fermentation section, but this section gets the most views.
I’ve only brewed kolsch twice, but I’ve found that the kolsch yeast (I used WY2565) set up a beautifully thick, clean kreusen. This will drop once fermentation finishes and you cold-crash.
Just wondering, how long did it take for you to hit final gravity. I was thinking of waiting closer to three weeks before i consider testing and moving to secondary. BTW, I’m fermenting at 57 degrees.
Looks like I gave it about a week at ferm temp (57 degrees), then let it free-rise to 68 degrees, where it stayed for 5 days before cold-crashing and conditioning in the keg. I’ll be brewing another batch in a month or two for summer. Kolsch is awesome!
El Capitan, how long did your kreusan last? I still have a good amount of kreusan 11 days later. I have never seen kreusan last so long. I was very good with my sanitation and i did a yeast starter, but can’t help but be a bit worried with the kreusan still being there.
RDWHAHB. I’ve had kreusen stick around for 2+ weeks occasionally, but it depends on the strain. Sometimes it just doesn’t want to drop, even though fermentation is done.
Any time the description of the yeast says " a true top cropping strain" you can expect the yeast foam like crazy and stay for a while at the top of your fermenter. If you ferment in buckets, or have a way to harvest from a carboy you can get a lot of top notch yeast for your next beer. :cheers:
Interesting. I actually have the same question, however I am using 1272 American Ale II yeast.
It has been about 12 days, fermentation was very active. This was a reuse of yeast cake. I went to dry hop, and when I opened the bucket huge layer of Kreusan. I took a gravity reading, it seems inline with being complete, 1.016. It doesn’t appear to be fermenting anymore as the air lock is maybe 1 bubble every 10 minutes. Are you guys saying I can crop off the top and this is good yeast to store? Is this layer gonna sink anytime soon? BTW this beer is the Rogue Blackened Brutal Bitter AG kit.
Sanitize a thief and pull out a sample. If your SG is close to where your FG should be then I’d rack. I did notice that with my Kolschs the kreusen didn’t really ever crash. Word of warning about Kolsch though, you will want to capture some yeast in the bottling bucket and overcarb as it tends to bottle condition a bit on the flat side. Such a great clean yeast though, even ferments cleanly around 70F. Saves me from having to lager.
[quote=“gdizzle”]I am using 1272 American Ale II yeast… Are you guys saying I can crop off the top and this is good yeast to store? Is this layer gonna sink anytime soon? [/quote]Yes, you can scrape the yeast off the top and reuse (1272 is a great top-cropper). I find that sometimes I have to break up the krausen with a spoon to get it to drop.
