Lager fermenting with krausen at top? Is this ok?

So I pitched some WLP830 into my first lager attempt yesterday morning and saw the first foaming about 12 hours later. I started it off at 55 degrees in hopes that it would start quicker which it seemed to do.

I then lowered the water that the fermentor is in down to 50. The thing is that there is about 2 inches above the water line and this morning there was a pretty good amount of krausen building up.

I thought lager yeast was a bottom fermenting yeast, so why is there build up accumulating on the top? I could understand a little, but there is quite a bit and this is only a 1.044 beer.

The room temp is about 55-57 too. I am trying to keep the room cool to try and stabalize the water temp easier.

Lager yeast just "favor" the bottom more. They're still producing CO2 which carries themselves, proteins, hop particles, etc. (which creates a krausen) to the top. However, lager krausens are usually cleaner and neater, more compact than most ale krausens.

menschmaschine said:

Lager yeast just "favor" the bottom more. They're still producing CO2 which carries themselves, proteins, hop particles, etc. (which creates a krausen) to the top. However, lager krausens are usually cleaner and neater, more compact than most ale krausens.

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Ok, that is good to know, the krausen is pure white and definitely looks different that the ales were. It is just weird I am not seeing much bubble action in the 3-way air piece. I made sure it was sealed and finally saw one after waiting a minute or 2.

menschmaschine said:

Lager yeast just "favor" the bottom more. They're still producing CO2 which carries themselves, proteins, hop particles, etc. (which creates a krausen) to the top. However, lager krausens are usually cleaner and neater, more compact than most ale krausens.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be cool if the krausen were on the bottom though? :rockin: