How long does your krausen usually take to fall into the beer?

I brewed three extract kits so far. My first witbier still had krausen 3 weeks after brewing, so did my tripel. My third brew, a hefeweizen, has almost no krausen left on it after just 6 days.

The hefeweizen bubbled like crazy for the first three days and then stopped fairly quickly. Is there that much difference between the yeast strains?

Just to clarify, I am not worried. I am just curious. I cracked open the bucket today and took a peek. The beer looks great, shows no signs of infection and smells wonderful. Can't wait to bottle it in 3 weeks.

You may be able to bottle it a bit earlier. My Hefe's always go real fast and they are usually kegged on day 10. Hefe yeast is very vigorous, so keep an eye on the gravity, and you'll be good to go sooner than expected probably.

I had a wit beer that I pitched bottle harvested Hoegaarden yeast on Dec. 26th, LAST YEAR that STILL had a 2" krausen on it three weeks later. I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010. So the beer was done, but the krausen still lingered. I finally gently swirled the beer to knock it down, and let it settle for another week before I bottled it. I'm not normally a fan of knocking them down, and usually let it do it naturally.

But some yeasts are low flocculating, and may have a difficult time. I figured since mine was bottle harvested, and I had pitched the starter at high krausen, maybe it was "genetically mutated" with the flocculation "gene" off or something. So I gently swirled it and let it fall.

I brewed another batch with another mason jars worth of that yeast several months later and had the same thing happen.

Beligan wits are notoriously long krausening.

they can be diferent even with the same strains. mine are always a little different. there's all kinds of factors that affect the fermentation, you can control them some, but its never going to be exactly the same. i know that may not answer your question fully, maybe someone else will help us out a little

MyNameIsPaul said:

You may be able to bottle it a bit earlier. My Hefe's always go real fast and they are usually kegged on day 10. Hefe yeast is very vigorous, so keep an eye on the gravity, and you'll be good to go sooner than expected probably.

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The recipe calls for 2 week primary, 2 week secondary. I was planning on skipping the secondary, and letting the bear clear in the primary. How would I know it's ready to be bottled? The OG was 1.052, so I am sure my SG will stabilize by next week.

So how long after the krausen falls until fermentation has stopped? Until bottling?

I just racked a hefeweisen to my secondary even though the krausen was still on top. The gravity was where it was supposed to be so I didn't worry about it. The Wyeast Weizen/Weissbier had that krausen growing like an angry beast.