Irish Ale Yeast???

So I'm still fairly new to homebrewing and up until this point I've mainly used American Ale yeasts, California, etc. Put together my starter last night for my next brew (Imperial Stout) and it calls for Irish Ale Yeast, so I picked up the White Labs version.

Looking at it today, it seems this yeast is behaving VERY differently from what I'm used to with the american ale yeasts. Typically, I'll get a nice krausen on top, and then the yeast falls out to the bottom.

This Irish Ale yeast only has a few bubbles on top, which seems to be from all of the bubbles ( CO2???? ) that is coming up from the bottom... I've never brewed a lager, but it seems to me like it's acting awfully like something a lager would do. Pics are below for reference.

Is this completely normal for this yeast strain? Or do I have the wrong yeast? Thanks for the help!!!

PS> I have a vid, if that would help better...

Yes completely normal.

Two things I found:
Little to no krausen
Fastest fermeting yeast I've ever seen.

I just did a Red Hook ESB and used the Irish Ale and it was down 35 gravity points in 24 hours and completely done fermenting in 36 hours.

wow, good to know!

What temp did you try to keep your fermentation at? I noticed that on WL's site, they list it as a lower temp vs. others. Think I'll have issues with 75-80 deg?

I had the same experience with wyeast irish ale. Very very fast fermenter, great attenuation (1.040 - 1.008), done in less than a week. Beer turned out very dry. I fermented at 68, higher than that you'll get some esters I'd think.

roofjump said:

wow, good to know!

What temp did you try to keep your fermentation at? I noticed that on WL's site, they list it as a lower temp vs. others. Think I'll have issues with 75-80 deg?

Click to expand...

Low 70's is the upper range for that yeast.

Place your carboy inside a larger bucket if you have one and wrap acouple wet t-shirts over the whole thing. Place a small fan nearby and keep the air circulating around that set and keep the shirts damp.

That should buy you 4-5 degrees. Just make sure to turn off the fan when you're openning the fermenter for samples and testing.

My Wyeast Irish Ale 1084 finished my oatmeal stout in less than 4 days with very little krausen. I thought this was bad but have read elsewhere that this is to be expected of this type of yeast. Also, it happened quickly while the temperature was kept at a steady 62*F.

Yeah, this is normal. I thought I'd also interject that the few times I have used this strain, it caused funny yeast "clumps" at the bottom of the bottle if you bottle conditioning, instead of a nice thin layer.