Top-cropping and headspace

Okay, did some searching in past posts so I think I have answered my question, but I just want to test my understanding:

Wyeast 3944 is "a true top cropping yeast requiring full fermenter headspace of 33%." But that's just if you aren't using a blowoff hose, right? i.e. there's not some biochemical "thing" that happens in the big krausen that makes it so you really want the headspace instead?

Not that it matters right now, it's already pushing its way out the end of the blowoff tube, so trying to do something stupid like racking it to a bigger fermenter is out of the question. It's RDWHAHB on this batch either way; I'm just wondering for future reference.

You just lose all your yeast through the blow off tube. Ideally, I think you want the head space to allow room for the yeast. I wouldn't sweat it if you there was only 25% room and had to use a blow off to catch some of it.

You should post a pic of the krausen if possible. It would be cool to see one with a true top cropper.

as PTray mentioned you want the headspace to keep your yeast in the fermentation chamber, if you go with too little headspace your going to lose enough yeast that your yeast is going to strain itself reproducing. not ideal.

Hrm, this is not good... I have like 3 or 4 INCHES headspace, and I was already concerned about the pitch rate because this is a high gravity beer. Crap, any suggestions? Pitch more in a few days? RDWHAHB?

I'm a little annoyed because I would have thought JHB would mention this nonstandard requirement in the recipe (basing it off the Grand Cru recipe)

Go to the source, shoot Wyeast an e-mail.

As long as you allow 33% headspace you should be fine.

Here is the 5-gallon carboy it is fermenting in. I'm guessing that's maybe 5% headspace. D'oh...



And here is the business end of the blowout hose. I pitched this less than 8 hours ago. I'm thinking I'm in some trouble here... :/



I guess I'll e-mail Wyeast. Dammit, why didn't I download the spec sheet before I pitched?

Well, it's a really quite active fermentation for only a little more than T+08 hours since pitching. Maybe I'll get away with it because of that, i.e. maybe it's reproducing so fast in the early stages I'll get away with losing a lot of yeast out the hose. I'm still hoping somebody will come along and say, "I've had this happen, and here's what I did..." or whatever... but I suppose if not, and if Wyeast doesn't have any suggestions, I'll just wait a few days until fermentation slows down, take a gravity reading, and go from there.

I noticed your carboy is on a counter. At what temperature are you fermenting? Lowering the temp might help. It would lessen esters but may also decrease the rate of fermentation...

It's about 70F. I know that's not ideal, but fermenting elsewhere would most likely mean having to lug a full carboy down a flight of stairs, which I'm not really into. We have a toddler so putting it on the floor in a room that's accessible to him would be a bad idea...

Edit: I could probably do the wet sweater and a fan thing though... Might be a battle with SWMBO, we'll see...

Might not be worth it...

I did a hefe with WLP300 last week - my first with a true top-fermenting yeast. I had about 25% headspace and used a blow-off, fermenting at 63 degrees. Not a drop even hit the blow-off tubing.

How is that for anecdotal experience?

Okay. Plan for now is to just let it do its thing for a week or until the krausen dies down, whichever comes first, and then take a gravity reading and decide how to proceed from there. Fingers crossed it will just work out okay anyway...

Doesn't Palmer say that you can use a five gallon fermenter with a blow off tube for primary fermentation of five gallon batches? I think he even claims there are some advantages to this.

Also when I was getting my fermenters at the LHBS the guy there told me that I didn't want a lot of headspace and it's best if the beer comes up to where the carboy starts to curve.

I've always used six and a half gallon carboys for my fermentations, so I can't speak from experience, but I think you'll be fine. You'll lose some yeast during the blow off, but there will be a lot in suspension too.

spagyric said:

Doesn't Palmer say that you can use a five gallon fermenter with a blow off tube for primary fermentation of five gallon batches? I think he even claims there are some advantages to this.

Also when I was getting my fermenters at the LHBS the guy there told me that I didn't want a lot of headspace and it's best if the beer comes up to where the carboy starts to curve.

I've always used six and a half gallon carboys for my fermentations, so I can't speak from experience, but I think you'll be fine. You'll lose some yeast during the blow off, but there will be a lot in suspension too.

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The top-cropping yeasts are a different beast from more typical strains. Have you fermented with them?

Head space shouldn't be so important in the primary chamber - the produced CO2 fills the headspace so oxidation is less of a concern. If you rack to secondary, then yes, either aim for very little headspace or fill the headspace with CO2 directly.

spagyric said:

Doesn't Palmer say that you can use a five gallon fermenter with a blow off tube for primary fermentation of five gallon batches? I think he even claims there are some advantages to this.

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Yes this is indubitably the case with most yeasts and why I thought absolutely nothing of it at the time. But apparently the situation is different with so-called "top cropping" yeasts. They are so concentrated at the top that you lose a significant amount through the blowoff tube -- at least that's what I'm told.

It is now clear to me that I severely underpitched as well, even if I hadn't left too much headspace. I'd give better than 50/50 odds I'll be looking at a stuck fermentation in the next week or two. Reading up about how to deal with that now... Edit: Of course, I will do nothing until I am 100% certain the fermentation is actually stuck. It's going nuts right now, or at least it was when I left for work a couple hours ago, so who knows, maybe I'll get lucky...

The frustrating thing is that up until this batch, I had brewed everything in a 6.5-gal carboy that I only filled to 5 gallons, with no blowoff hose. So I would have been alright even in my ignorance. That carboy's still got a pale ale in primary, and I was itching to get a pipeline going, so I went out and bought a 5-gal carboy for this one... my first time even using a blowoff hose... and the first time I wasn't supposed to! D'oh...

According to the pitching rate calculator, I should have either used 3 packets for this beer, or else 2 packets with a 1.5L starter. I used 1 packet with no starter. And all my yeast is escaping out the blowoff hose.

I suppose by the time I even know I've got a stuck fermentation, the pale ale will have long been out of the 6.5-gal carboy (I'll be bottling it next Sunday, time permitting, and I probably wouldn't declare a stuck fermentation until at least 2 weeks in at a very minimum) so I'm thinking my best bet is to not start a new batch in the big fella, and wait to see what happens with this Grand Cru. If it gets stuck, I can make a pretty good-sized starter, and then rack the Grand Cru to the 6.5-gal carboy along with the starter, and I should still have a good 15-20% of headspace. It will mess up my attempt to get a pipeline going, but oh well...

jsweet said:

Yes this is indubitably the case with most yeasts and why I thought absolutely nothing of it at the time. But apparently the situation is different with so-called "top cropping" yeasts. They are so concentrated at the top that you lose a significant amount through the blowoff tube -- at least that's what I'm told.

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I see. I'm fairly new to this, I didn't realize there was a difference between "top cropping" yeast and standard ale yeast. Good luck in any case.

spagyric said:

I see. I'm fairly new to this, I didn't realize there was a difference between "top cropping" yeast and standard ale yeast. Good luck in any case.

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Thanks. I'm also fairly new to this (this is batch #3), and until 8AM this morning, I too didn't realize there was a difference between top cropping yeast and standard ale yeast. So yeah, I'll be needing that good luck in any case

You do have the end of that blow-off tube submerged in something other than krausen, correct?

JohnnyO said:

You do have the end of that blow-off tube submerged in something other than krausen, correct?

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Good pick-up.

JohnnyO said:

You do have the end of that blow-off tube submerged in something other than krausen, correct?

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Oh crap, I forgot I was supposed to do that... Oy, what comedy of errors this batch is turning out to be!

At this point, I'm guessing it's pushing out enough CO2 that contamination is not an issue. Is it worth calling SWMBO and telling her to put water in the pot, or am I fine just waiting until I get home in another three hours?

I wouldn't sweat it as I don't think it's anything major. If you Google "Burton Union Fermentation" it refers to a type of blowoff system for ales with true top cropping yeast if I remember. Here is a paragraph from Wiki:

The Burton breweries were known for a recirculating fermentation system known as the Burton Union. Invented in the 1830s, the Union system was a row of casks connected to a common trough by way of a series of pipes. The practical purpose of the Union system was to allow excess barm (yeast foam) to be expelled from the casks without leaving excessive amounts of head space within the casks; the system was quickly refined to separate any expelled beer from the wasted yeast, allowing it to flow back into the casks to continue fermentation.

Thank you, PT Ray, that's sort of what I've been waiting to hear, that despite doing everything in my power to piss off the yeast, I probably won't get a stuck fermentation anyway. It's good to know that if I do, I have a plan to fix it, but... it's hard to RDW with that possibility hanging over my head. Better to just believe everything will be fine for now

I found cool BYO article on a home version of the Burton Union Fermentation. And guess what yeast is in the list of ones to use?

BYO-BUF

I just e-mailed a friend of mine who previously did the same recipe(*) with the same yeast, and also wasn't aware of the special requirements of top-cropping yeast, and his came out fine, albeit it was a very slow fermentation. So probably I'm fine.

(*) Only thing is, I modified it some to get a higher gravity. I hope that doesn't tip the scales into stuck territory... but I'm feeling better about it.

jsweet said:

Thanks. I'm also fairly new to this (this is batch #3), and until 8AM this morning, I too didn't realize there was a difference between top cropping yeast and standard ale yeast. So yeah, I'll be needing that good luck in any case

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Heating up strike water for my third batch as we speak.

An update on this one (though still no verdict)... I heard back from Wyeast and this is what they said:

Keep an eye on it. If you see it blowing out, try to lightly shake the carboy to knock the yeast back into solution. Do this every once in a while if it looks like a lot is coming out.

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Well damn, that sounds like a great idea, and I post it here in case anyone else makes this same mistake in the future. Unfortunately it didn't do me a whit of good (or perhaps given this yeast, a "wit" of good ?) since I received the e-mail an hour or two after I was certain blowoff had ceased and already capped it with a fermentation lock. That said, based on what I saw yesterday, I bet I could have reclaimed some non-trivial fraction of the expelled yeast by just trying to shake as much blowoff material as possible back into the fermenter.

(Yesterday I had briefly considered trying to direct the blowoff into a sanitized not-quite-sealed container, and then repitch it into the beer once fermentation slowed down a bit... but I decided that was all kinds of wrong, not least because of the contamination risk, not to mention reintroducing fusel oils, the possibility that the expelled yeast wouldn't be acclimated anyway, etc....)

As of today, the fermentation lock is bubbling away and the fermentation is still very visibly active from the top of the carboy to the bottom, so that's somewhat encouraging. Not that this means diddly squat necessarily; this was a pretty big beer so it may get stalled at some point anyway. I plan on taking a gravity reading once a week and see where that takes me after 2-4 weeks.

I find myself in the exact same situation as you... I found this thread after trying to figure out why I'm at about 5.5 days with no sign of slowing fermentation.

I was wondering how your beer turned out? Do you have any record of the final gravity? Did it turn out ok? Thanks!