What effects Krausen Volume?

Is this too general? I'm wondering why some of my brews require a blow off and some don't.

I recently made a starter and expected an abundance of krausen on an amber ale but it barely went above an inch. A week before I was happy I had put in a blowoff tube in an apa. What gives?

Foam science (yes, there is such a thing ) is mighty complicated. A lot of it has to do with protein composition of your wort, a lot of it has to do with temperature, and some of it has to do with rate of fermentation. In all my batches, I've never found a correlation between krausen and ultimate quality.

From my experience, the yeast strand is the largest factor. Some yeast such as Wyeast 3787 will generate a large Krausen while I observed a much smaller Krausen with Wyeast 1272.

I think it depends primarily on the yeast, with some other variables affecting it as well.

I used Nottingham dried yeast on a pale ale at 1.044, and had the most insane blowoff I've ever had, yet I fermented a beer at 1.095 with roselare and had under an inch of krausen.

Well, let me throw in water chemistry. Since I've been using AJ's primer recommendation I get very low Krausen levels, even on brews that would give me a couple of inches or more before.

Hermit said:

Well, let me throw in water chemistry. Since I've been using AJ's primer recommendation I get very low Krausen levels, even on brews that would give me a couple of inches or more before.

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AJ's primer?

Interesting about the yeast. I used White Labs California WLP001 for the big krausen and California ale V WLP051 for the low Krausen. I'm just curious about the chemistry involved. I like to know everything about the process.

Thanks for you help.

BoxofRain said:

AJ's primer?

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Sticky in the brew science forum.

Fetus said:

I think it depends primarily on the yeast, with some other variables affecting it as well.

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I don't think it depends "primarily" on any one thing.

I have a pale ale recipe that I make every 4 weeks. I always use the same yeast (US-05) and the recipe is 99% identical every time I make it. About 6 months or so ago, i decided to lower the ambient temp of my fermentation fridge from 66*F to 62*F.

Using the same yeast and the same recipe, but lowering the temp 4*F caused a massive change in krausen. I used to get an inch or two of light 'soap suds' looking foam on top. But now I get 4" of gooey slimy looking stuff.