Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this yeast. I read reviews that said that it was a bit finicky but I’m a bit stuck.
I brewed an amber ale (AG), hit my gravities on the money, pitched from a 1 quart starter, lag time time was about 5 hours, active fermentation wasn’t very vigorous, lasted 3 days but its been a week and I still have this really thick (2 in.) krausen left on top.
Reviews said to ferment around 65F but due to last weeks indian summer it stayed around 70F. I’ve never seen anything like this. Should I leave it primary and wait for it to settle? Should I rack to secondary and proceed as normal? The only thing I haven’t done yet is taken a FG reading in fear of piercing the yeast cake that has formed on top.
Take a gravity reading. It will be alright to go through the krausen. If you want to do a secondary (and its ready) just siphon below the krausen.
I’ve never used this yeast but I was on White Lab website earlier day to look at some yeast strains. This one looked interesting so I read through the reviews. Make a long story short a lot of people have had problems with a really long fermentation. Check out the reviews hopefully they can give you some more information.
:cheers:
I understand the slow fermentation but at what point do I call it a stuck fermentation? A stuck fermentation is also something I’ve never encountered. What would I do then? Make a small wort with DME and add it to the primary? Or transfer to secondary and add a small wort to it then?
What was the gravity? Has it been the same for a couple days? It’s only been a week so it could still be fermenting, I’ve had a batch or two go two or three weeks before they were done. Gravity readings the only way to know if its done.
I read somewhere that transferring to a secondary with this yeast gave it the extra oxygen it needed to finish. My experience with the very thick krausen was similar. I just transferred the brown ale I used it for to secondary. It went from 1.058 to 1.018 in two weeks and I hope to hit 1.014 after a week or so in the secondary.
