One week ago I started my second brew, a hefeweizen. It's an extract brew that came out with an OG of 1.062, which is almost spot-on to what the calculators had come up with previously. I had made a 3 L starter of Wyeast 3056... I know this seems a little high for that OG, but the production date on the yeast was Sept 1/09, and mrmalty.com recommended a much bigger starter than 3 L. Pitched the yeast at about 65 F and rocked the carboy for a good 5 minutes to aerate. Started fermenting at about 62 F (recommended from the hefe recipe in Jamil's book) about 12-15 hours later, and the airlock was bubbling at about once/sec 24 hours later.
SO, almost one week later, the krausen is still quite big and thick, and the airlock is still bubbling at about once/15 sec. I know that airlocks are a bad way to measure fermentation, but I don't want to take a gravity reading yet as the krausen is still pretty high. Does this not seem really long for an active fermentation for an ale? Maybe I did pitch too much yeast, and the banana esters are going to be much lower than they should be?
SO, almost one week later, the krausen is still quite big and thick, and the airlock is still bubbling at about once/15 sec. I know that airlocks are a bad way to measure fermentation, but I don't want to take a gravity reading yet as the krausen is still pretty high. Does this not seem really long for an active fermentation for an ale? Maybe I did pitch too much yeast, and the banana esters are going to be much lower than they should be?