Insufficient stirring of fermenter

Just finished a batch of what will be a raspberry ale. When I put it in the fermenter, I did it my usual way - two gallons of 35F water, two gallons of wort at 120F, and 1 gallon of water to bring the average temp to 70F. I try to pour from a pretty good height (3 feet or so) both to get some aeration and to mix them well.

When I finished it all it stratified into two layers - a dark bottom layer and a lighter top layer. The bottom layer was warm and the top layer was cold. Using my finely honed deductive skills I decided that the higher-SG wort had settled to the bottom and the colder water was on top. No problem, I thought, I'll just shake it up.

Well, no amount of shaking would dislodge the thermocline, and I didn't want to sterilize some sort of stirrer so I could mess with it, so I just put the yeast in and left it.

The next morning the yeast was converting merrily away - but the thermocline was still there. The yeast had dropped through the thermocline and was going to town on the warmer wort at the bottom. The yeast would drop onto some of the trub at the bottom, generate CO2, lift pieces of it up to the thermocline, and then balance them there.

So now I have a fermenter with the top full of clearish liquid, a magically suspended layer of trub in the middle, and a bottom layer that's warm and dark and full of yeast. And it seems perfectly content to sit that way, but it's really bugging me that this warmer layer isn't just convecting itself away. I mean, it's been twelve hours!

So the question is - do I just sterilize something and stir it up, or is this yet another case of "leave it alone, it'll be fine?"

Wow, I've never seen that happen. But, I am a newbie myself. What was the intended OG of the beer? That must've been one heck of a dense partial boil.

My best guess is that your density punch will collapse once the yeast lower the density of the bottom layer enough, though.

billvon said:

...or is this yet another case of "leave it alone, it'll be fine?"

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The answer is "yes"

Congratulations on your new virture - patience. Don't worry, you will develop more of it along the way.

We want pictures!

It's fine. Occasionally when I've stepped a mead, I'd see layers. Since the water/alcohol mix is lighter than water, the batch will blend in time.

BioBeing said:

We want pictures!

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Here's a bad (cellphone) picture; doesn't do it justice.

That's pretty sweet looking. It looks like it may be starting to mix together a bit already. There isn't a real definite stratification between the two layers.