Wy 1318 Popped a Second Krausen?

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pkiller001

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So I've been focusing on small batch, lower gravity beers to let me work on process and reproducibility, with the added bonus that I can easily mash in a 2 gallon cooler if I'm only brewing 2.5 gallons!

My most recent attempts have focused on using Wy1318 (London Ale III) to brew a premium bitter. I mashed at around 158 - 160 (my last attempt was too thin bodied, and I did a better job of pre-heating the mash tun leading to a slight overshot of my mash temp), but realized too late that my smack pack was a bit old, and probably warranted a starter. OG was 1.042

I pitched at 63 F, and put the better bottle in a water bath that got no higher than 68Fk. 4 days later it had only dropped to 1.016, but tasted good, and had a decent mouth feel. 3 days after that it was still at 1.016, starting to clear, tasted even better and still had a full bodied mouth feel. I got everything set to bottle in the following day or two when the krausen re-formed, and even though the beer still seems to be clearing, there is a slight amount of circulation visible in better bottle.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with this yeast? Is this just do to underpitching and thus a temperamental fermentation? The ferment was ticking along nicely at 67-69F the entire time while in the water bath, is it as simple as the beer heating to 72F once out of the water bath?
 
let it run it's course, 2 krausens are not unusual. i would not heat it up to any temp. once you get stable hydro readings you can do whatever you are going to do.
 
Highly flocculating yeast have tendency to finish slowly and dropping out early. I saw many fermentations suspended and then restarted with 1318 and other English yeast. Not really a problem if you keg your beer, but if you want to bottle, you could end up with gushers (or maybe even bombs) if yeast resume fermentation later in bottles.

Additionally, racking off after 7 days is way too early to be sure all diacetyl is reduced because even if you don't taste it in green beer, there may be acetolactate which will become diacetyl later on.
 
Highly flocculating yeast have tendency to finish slowly and dropping out early. I saw many fermentations suspended and then restarted with 1318 and other English yeast. Not really a problem if you keg your beer, but if you want to bottle, you could end up with gushers (or maybe even bombs) if yeast resume fermentation later in bottles.

Additionally, racking off after 7 days is way too early to be sure all diacetyl is reduced because even if you don't taste it in green beer, there may be acetolactate which will become diacetyl later on.

Yes! I just had this happen. But it was ok because half I bottled and half I kegged. The bottles were conditioned at room temp (73ish in a cool bathtub) and the keg was put directly in the kegerator. I should point out though I did a week in secondary to separate some of the yeast and I blended the wort half and half from each bucket into each carboy (10 gal batch) for consistency and took just a little yeast off the bottom. It took about an additional 10 days for the diacetyl to subside in the keg and the bottles were good to go as soon as they were carbed. The warm conditioning acted like a diacetyl rest. BTW I used wyeast 1968 (London ESB I just like it)
 
I had the same problem with an ESB, but it was 5 or more weeks between "uprisings".

Beer eventually cleared. Bottled it and it tastes great. Looked for all the world like I had some sort of infection (never had one, not sure what they really look like).

I assume somehow the temp went up when I moved the bucket.

All is well.
 
Glad to know that this isn't just something wrong with my beer.

I actually took another gravity reading last night, and despite what looks like persistent fermentation, it's still sitting at 1.016. I guess between my high mash temp and low pitch rate I'm not going to see much more attenuation. It still tastes great, though. This isn't a style I have a huge experience with, but I'm loving the full flavor from the English yeast and a thicker mouthfeel despite the low gravity. Any problems with bottling if I still have krausen but appear to be at terminal gravity?

Zgoda, I've heard the arguements about diacetyl. I have to admit that I'm not sure I'm able to identify diacetyl. I'd been following a thread about temperature modification of English yeast strains to prevent the beers from cleaning up too much and leaving them thin, which definately happened with my first attempt at this beer. I haven't finished the whole thread, but several people were reporting good results without too my diacetyl using Fuller's fermentation schedule from CYBI. I figured I'd try a quick turn around, which would mean potentially grain to glass in 2 weeks; close to ideal in my mind for a beer best drunk young.

Thanks to everyone for their quick responses.
 
Wy1318 is one of the best English top croppers. If you let it, the krausen will stick around for months. It is fine to rack/bottle/keg if there is still a thick krausen, so long as the beer has stopped fermenting. I use this strain A LOT - you have to be careful mashing really high with this strain as it will leave the beer slightly sweet, even if you get 75% attenuation. Also, it doesn't tend to produce much diacetyl, though will if underpitched. A few days at 70F will clear it up pretty well.
 
Bierhaus, thanks for weighing in!

The last time I used this yeast the krausen fell in the first week as expected, so I was pretty surprised by this turn of events.

I think I know what you mean about residual sweetness. The crystal malts are really shining in my recent gravity sample -- I've got 8% carastan and 1.5% crystal 120 in this batch.

I'm new to partial mashes/all grain, but my understanding was that higher mash temps left behind dextrans that aren't sweet per se, but add to mouth feel. Is there something about 1318 that causes it to leave behind polysaccharides that we would perceive as sweet?
 
I'm new to partial mashes/all grain, but my understanding was that higher mash temps left behind dextrans that aren't sweet per se, but add to mouth feel. Is there something about 1318 that causes it to leave behind polysaccharides that we would perceive as sweet?

This guy can explain it better than I.

http://***********/stories/techniques/article/indices/45-mashing/1115-managing-mash-thickness

With that in mind, 1318 tends to give the finished beer a slightly 'sweet' character, regardless of how much attenuation is achieved. Whether or not this has anything to do with residual sugars or just yeast byproducts, I'm not entirely sure.
 
Wy1318 is one of the best English top croppers. If you let it, the krausen will stick around for months. It is fine to rack/bottle/keg if there is still a thick krausen, so long as the beer has stopped fermenting. I use this strain A LOT - you have to be careful mashing really high with this strain as it will leave the beer slightly sweet, even if you get 75% attenuation. Also, it doesn't tend to produce much diacetyl, though will if underpitched. A few days at 70F will clear it up pretty well.

I'm a first time user of this strain and I've got a second krausen on 1.037 bitter. At 9 days after pitching it was at 1.010 (predicted terminal gravity), the airlock had been essentially still for at least 4 days (one bubble in every 5 minutes) so I added the dry hops. 3 days later there is a second krausen, the airlock is bubbling every 3 seconds, there is hop bits and trub rising and sinking and the gravity was down to 1.008. Mash went fine, ferment temp has been a stable 21C. Is this how this yeast acts? Did i pick something up from the dry hops?
 
I think nothing bad happened, yeast just resumed stalled fermentation. Perhaps hops falling to the bottom roused yeast into suspension again. In my case it was sufficient to move carboy from one corner to another in the basement to resume fermentation. With 1318 of course.
 
I'm a first time user of this strain and I've got a second krausen on 1.037 bitter. At 9 days after pitching it was at 1.010 (predicted terminal gravity), the airlock had been essentially still for at least 4 days (one bubble in every 5 minutes) so I added the dry hops. 3 days later there is a second krausen, the airlock is bubbling every 3 seconds, there is hop bits and trub rising and sinking and the gravity was down to 1.008. Mash went fine, ferment temp has been a stable 21C. Is this how this yeast acts? Did i pick something up from the dry hops?

This is behavious is normal as far as British yeast strains go. Most of them are very flocculant and the yeast tend to either sink to the bottom in huge clumps or chill on the surface of the beer (1318, 1469, 1968, 1187 and other true top croppers exacerbate this behaviour).

I'd recommend fermenting in buckets if possible and rousing the yeast by "folding" the krausen with a spoon a few times in the first days of fermentation. What probably happened is the yeast flocced out before eating the last two points and that dry hoping roused them back into shape, hence the gravity drop. 1318 is a very docile and superb yeast strain but it needs a bit of rousing in my experience to get full attenuation. You can bottle as soon as gravity is stable and you feel the beer is ready, even if there is still a yeast mat on top. Top croppers will form a thick crust on top after 10 days or so that will pretty much never fall down in the beer. You just rack beneath it or throw it away come bottling time.

1.008 for an ordinary bitter is just about perfect I reckon. Expect fruity if your beer fermented at 21C for the whole way though, but fruity has its place in a good bitter !
 
Thanks for the info. The gravity sample before the dry hops was great and not too fruity at all (my wife even thought it was good and she always thinks warm, flat gravity samples are disgusting). I considered bottling it then and skipping the dry hopping. I'm kinda bummed out that its taking so long to finish- I brewed a low gravity beer in hopes of a quick turn around as my supply was running out.
 
Thanks for the info. The gravity sample before the dry hops was great and not too fruity at all (my wife even thought it was good and she always thinks warm, flat gravity samples are disgusting). I considered bottling it then and skipping the dry hopping. I'm kinda bummed out that its taking so long to finish- I brewed a low gravity beer in hopes of a quick turn around as my supply was running out.

Yeast strains with high flocculation properties are double edged swords: they tend to clear very fast, leaving you with bright beer in no time, but can also have trouble reaching proper attenuation, hence possibly longer ferments. But this need not be to be the case. With a good pitch of healthy yeast, rousing and temperature control, strains such as 1318 or 1968 can help you go from grain to glass in a very, very short time. Especially if you brew a simple low-gravity ale that doesn't need some of its "qualities" to be aged out.
 
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