Question about my yeast bed

Total Newbie here. I'm only on my second brew so I apologize if I use the wrong vernacular or ask dumb questions.

As mentioned previously, I just started my second brew. I've been doing one galloon brews because I don't have all the equipment or space, and I don't want to screw up 5 galloons as opposed to 1 galloon my first few attempts.

So, with this brew, I made my yeast starter according to the size of my 1 galloon recipe and it looked great. Made my wort, also good. Cooled my wort to exactly 68F, the same as the ambient temperature and the same as the yeast starter.

I pitched my yeast and everything looked good. I checked back the next morning and my yeast bed looks huge, about 2/3 the size of the fermenter. And on top of that, I don't have any krausen. I'm getting active bubbling, so I know the yeast is active and not dead. I pitched my yeast Saturday night and it is now Monday morning. I'm still getting some bubbling but still no krausen.

Did I screw up somewhere and can I fix it? Any help is appreciated.

Did you use Whirfloc or Irish Moss? Both of these cause lots of fluffy looking debris in the fermenter. It should compact down with a few weeks time. You will probably start getting krausen soon, there's a sticky here that is all about fermentation taking up to 72 hours to begin.

Also, why do you repeatedly spell gallon "galloon"?

Making a starter for a one gallooon batch might be way overpitching. If so, maybe it's fermented out already. Like mentioned, just let it sit for a while and the debris (trub) should settle. After a week or two, take a gravity reading and see where it is.

I used Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast. The yeast starter was scaled down to a 1 gallon portion: the slurry was under a half a cup and I chilled the starter overnight to flocculate all the yeast. But perhaps you're still right about over pitching.

I'm not sure why I spelt gallon as galloon...

Just leave it alloone and see what happens...

dredzs said:

I used Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast. The yeast starter was scaled down to a 1 gallon portion: the slurry was under a half a cup and I chilled the starter overnight to flocculate all the yeast. But perhaps you're still right about over pitching.

I'm not sure why I spelt gallon as galloon...

Click to expand...

Did you actually make a starter or did you just rehydrate the yeast? From what I've gathered (which, regarding starters, isn't much) starters are generally only used with liquid yeast (which S-04 is not) and you add nutrient or something. Re-hydrating is just adding the dry yeast to sanitized (boiled) lukewarm water and letting them "wake up" before pitching. Refrigeration is not needed with re-hydration.