Hoegaarden/WLP400 fermentation times

I have a 1.054 OG belgian whitbier that I am fermenting with the hoegaarden strain that I bottle captured. After over two weeks in the primary I am only down to about 1.024. I still have krausen, but tons of yeast have floculated. I am at 72 degrees fermenting.

Has anybody else noticed this yeast to be SLOW!!??? I was hoping to have this in the bottle after a week.

No it should not take that long and 1.024 is way too high to be done. Slow to flocculate but not slow to ferment.

Is this AG? What was the mash temp?

I assume you stepped up the yeast with starters. How big a starter did you pitch into what size batch?

maida7 said:

No it should not take that long and 1.024 is way too high to be done. Slow to flocculate but not slow to ferment.

Is this AG? What was the mash temp?

I assume you stepped up the yeast with starters. How big a starter did you pitch into what size batch?

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All grain, mashed at 151 pitched two liter starter that I stepped up from 1/2 quart over the course of a week and a half. I did this one by the books.....

I let the propagation phase take place at 67 degrees, then ramped up to 72.

It's possible that they used a lager strain to carbonate the beer in the bottles.

maida7 said:

It's possible that they used a lager strain to carbonate the beer in the bottles.

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I have never brewed a lager before or witnessed a lager fermentation, but I can tell you that that I do have krausen, and it appears to be a normal belgian ale yeast fermentation....visually.

after 3 weeks this beer finished at 1.009....this yeast is a slow worker.

For the record, the beer tastes not so good out of the fermenter, it tastes like plastic or something...fermented in glass though.

Yep, WLP400 is really a slow worker. But it gets the job done!

I brewed Papazian's Who's in the garden grand cru ale with this yeast strain. I had kraeusen for about 3 weeks and a half. I got it to a FG of 1.005 (when I aimed 1.013, for the recipe I was following...). It was estimated at 1.013 too (with the average attenuation), but I guess WLP400 doesn't care about estimation .

I just did a wit that took a good two weeks to ferment down. The krausen hung around for a long time, I had a blow off tube on this thing for the duration. If I had temp control it might have been different but as it got warmer during the day the krausen would grow.

I'm currently using this yeast and I have krausen at 18 days. This is this longest I've ever seen it last.

Freezer temp set to 65F.

509inc said:

I'm currently using this yeast and I have krausen at 18 days. This is this longest I've ever seen it last.

Freezer temp set to 65F.

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We're having a similar discussion about it here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/odd-finish-199212/

It's very fine yeast that won't clump together. The finer and less clumpy the more it can be suspended by CO2 dissolved in solution.

Usually a good shaking of the fermenter will knock it down.

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