German Ale wyeast issue

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jvend

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hi I made 4 gallons of 1.061 gravity, used 4 packages of WyeAst German Ale, after breaking the nutrient bag there wasnt swelling for 5 hours. I pitch them anyway. Next morning was.a lot.of.activity a lot of.gas coming through airlock but practically no krausen, now at.night is less activity, very little krausen sinked back int. Is.this good? Ive.never used German Ale before, alwaysAmerican Ale. Im worried...
 
I'd let it ride for a while and if you are still worried you could check gravity readings.

Why did you pitch 4 wyeast packs? Other options would be a whole lot cheaper; you could make a starter from a single pack, or even just get away with pitching a single pack, or two for that matter, but even that would be expensive. I don't think it'll hurt anything, but that's like 30 bucks of yeast going into a 4 gallon batch!
 
mrmalty.com says 4 packs. I didnt had time to make a starter, besides, Im worried it could get contaminated
 
Also, The best temp I can give it is 25CIS THIS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM GUYS?
 
Also, The best temp I can give it is 25CIS THIS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM GUYS?

the high end for that yeast is 68 degrees and you are at 77 degrees so you may not have gotten the best performance out of the yeast. it's too late to do anything about it now but in the future keep in mind that temperature control is one of the most important factors in making a good beer, maybe the most important.
 
normal temp.in my country is 30 C, what do you recommend for keeping the temp at 21C?

anyway, main subject, almost no krausen, is it good?
 
You can buy an older used refrigerator and a external temperature controller. That will allow you to maintain temperatures cooler than the room's temp. I bought a old Kenmore fridge a dozen years ago for $150 and it works like a charm with the manual external temp controller.
 
If you pitched 4 packs of yeast into 4 gallons of beer at 77 degrees...... it might have fermented so fast you never noticed it. This was not the ideal way to do things. Ideally, as pointed out above, yeast starter and temps in the low to mid 60's. Whether there was, or was not a krauesen is not the biggest issue. Yes, normally you would expect to see it - but that could simply be a symptom of how you did things on this batch.. research starters - they are easy. If you can't make a starter without contaminating it, you can't make beer without contaminating it. Just takes a little time to learn it and you will see it is not that big of a deal. WAY cheaper too:)
 
Whether there was krausen or not is not important. You had fermentation, but at less than ideal conditions. In the U.S. 4 packs of yeast would be about $28-32 US. You should be able to make a starter for much less and have a better fermentation with it. Let it ferment and it will end up as beer, but may not be perfect. Many use refrigerators to control temperature, or ferment in the basement where it is cooler, or you can look up "swamp cooler" on here and find lots of ideas to control fermentation temperature.
 
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