This Blew My Mind

So I brewed a pumpkin ale 13 days ago, and since day 1, there was this thick, frothy, elastic looking foam on the top of the Carboy. It was more than the average kraeusen. Like when you bake bread and the yeast rises.

So it was there. Day after day. I have been keeping everything constant at about 68-70. All of a sudden, today when I came home, the foam is completely gone. 13 days in, and it's done.

Is this a sign active fermentation is done? It wasn't gradual at all. Like a black and white thing. Crazy.

Its a sign that fermentation is probably slowing down. Only way to know its done is checking gravity.

Sounds like your using a top cropping yeast. And if the recipe uses any wheat, it will contribute further to a dense, spongy cap of krausen on top of the beer. It usually stays there for much longer than your average krausen, then it finally frees and drops into the beer. What yeast strain did you use?

This was an Ardennes yeast.

Somebirs said:

This was an Ardennes yeast.

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Im not familiar with the strain, but many or I might even go as far as to say most belgian strains are top cropping yeasts. What you saw was normal activity for this yeast.

Sounds just like the Safale US-05 I used in my Pumpkin to me.

Same thing happened to me. My local brew shop was out of wyeast 1084 so I dug around and found a London ale yeast that was good enough for my sweet stout. Great activity after pitch, by day 4, my average primary for this recipe this thick, foamy statue of bubbles just sat there, like some one threw a whitish brown sponge on top of my beer. I let it sit there for a week and a few days. Finally I just racked it off and have made my fruit addition. At this point im assuming infection but ill see it through and report back. Hearing your story gives me hope for this batch

Dont assume infection. Infection is pretty rare in brews on this forum anyway. We've seen yeast rafts and bubbles and weird pellicles and still they havent turned out to be infected at all. So many people think their beer is infected with something. Of course it is. It's just a yeast infection. You're beer will be fine. Take a deep breath.

As for my beer, I don't think there is an infection. It was just a very fluffy foam. Didn't look like an infection to me. And as I said, it went away, so it's all good. Just very interesting.

I had assumed the froth was from the extra protein from the pumpkin. My recipe called for 20 ounces of canned pumpkin, which was part of the steeped grains in a mostly LME brew.

What temp?

I have a batch with WLP550 (Achouffe strain) currently at 9 days with kraeusen still on it.

I usually push this yeast to 75 for a few days and then up to 80+ and kraeusen usually drops in about 5 days. This time I kept it at 70 F as I didn't want too many esters from it. This is the base beer for a Lambic style beer.

I have the same thing going in my fermenter as we speak. I used WLP036, It appeared hours later after the pitch. I'm really not worried because I smelled the top of the airlock and it smells normal to me. I'll take a picture of it and post it.

Calder said:

What temp?

I have a batch with WLP550 (Achouffe strain) currently at 9 days with kraeusen still on it.

I usually push this yeast to 75 for a few days and then up to 80+ and kraeusen usually drops in about 5 days. This time I kept it at 70 F as I didn't want too many esters from it. This is the base beer for a Lambic style beer.

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I kept it about 70.

As promised, This pick was taken as I was racking my kitchen sink pale ale into secondary. I hope is was what you were describing (Top Cropping Yeast)

Hm. That could be the same. Basically, if you sprinkled something on top of the foam, it would stay there because it's so spongy and strong looking.

Yeah, with I moved my siphon that whole top layer it moved around as a whole. When I cleaned my carboy. It was like curdled milk when I poured it out.

Its yeast behavior... I can't say its typical because I've never observed that exactly but its definitely not bacterial. Something like that would take many weeks to develop if it was an infection.

Good info all, that picture is exactly what was on top of my sweet stout. I won't sweat it then, mine setup in 3 days after pitch.