How long does Krausen last?

Made a smoked pale ale the other day at work, I dunno musta been about 10 days ago and everything went great . . . well except for the 911 call near the end of the boil, but a extra 15 minutes of boil aint gonna hurt. Anyway pitched the yeast wrapped it in a towel and left it sit on the kitchen table over ngiht. when I woke up the next morning it was going great and already had a nice krausen on it, I humped it out to the truck and got it home and stuck it in it's normal place and everything was going great.

Well like I said it's been about 10 days, maybe more and there is very little air lock activity BUT the krausen is still there and it doesnt look like it is going anywhere. The only thing I did different this batch besides using a touch of smoked malt was using Cara-pils.

When is this thing gonna fall? I want to start another batch but kinda out of carboys until I can rack this to a secondary.

If ya need the recipie I can post it later.

Pumbaa said:

...well except for the 911 call near the end of the boil...

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Yeah, I hate it when that happens.

As far as the krausen, I've had a lot last 8-10 days. I recently had Wyeast 1338 go 14. Sometimes you just have to let it do its thing.

Pumbaa said:

When is this thing gonna fall? I want to start another batch but kinda out of carboys until I can rack this to a secondary.

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I've had a few batches like that lately...no bubbles but the krauzen won't go away. Jiggle it a bit, or take a sample...that usually makes mine go. If that doesn't make it fall, then it's just not ready.

I get this with WL Belgium Wit yeast; or the recipe/combo. I racked mine from primary regardless of krausen after about 8 days. It started growing again in the secondary. Hydro test had me from 1.051 to 1.030 at rack time. I thought it'd be much lower since I had to use a blowoff it was fermenting so hard. The last time I did this recipe it took 5 weeks for the krausen to finally fall in the secondary.

If you want to rack it; go for it. Or, test the gravity and if it's near FG I'd certainly rack it.

Thanks for this info. I have run into this issue for the first time as well. the krausen on my last batch is still there after 11 days. (this is my tenth batch of homebrew and this has never happened to me before.) Does anyone think it would be ok to bottle or should i put it in a secondary for a couple weeks?

just let it hang out. no need to rush things. time heals all.

Ok. cool. I'll do that. another question though - I don't think it is contaminated, but this krausen looks like snot or something. kind of stringy, but there are still bubbles. the yeast was going wild during the hard ferment. (this is only my second batch in a glass carboy and the first one was a stout so i could not see well into the wort.) There is no bad oder or anything. I was just curious if you had ever seen a krausen like that before?

thanks for the encouragement Rob

Pumbaa said:

Made a smoked pale ale the other day at work.....

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I wish I had a job that allowed my to brew at work

mattwierz said:

Thanks for this info. I have run into this issue for the first time as well. the krausen on my last batch is still there after 11 days. (this is my tenth batch of homebrew and this has never happened to me before.) Does anyone think it would be ok to bottle or should i put it in a secondary for a couple weeks?

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Leave it alone.....

I have a wit beer that I pitched yeast over two weeks ago (Dec. 26th), that STILL has a 2" krausen on it. But on Saturday I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010.

The yeast I pitched was from bottle harvested hoegaarden yeast. I had capture the yeast from a dozen bottles back in late summer and jarred a bunch of it. Then a few days before brewday on this wit, I made a starter with two mason jars worth of the yeast.

I just realized from your post that it was one of only two times that I actually was able to pitch the starter itself at high krasuen.

And almost immediately it formed this huge, rocky krausen. And like I said, and over two weeks it still has it, though I'm at 1.010, AND the hydrometer sample actually tasted like the other time I brewed this recipe.

I am going to wait my whole normal month in primary, and then probably go ahead and bottle, the thing is, if it doesn't fall, the krausen should float on top of the beer as you are racking and as the volume lowers in the primary.

I have another question regarding this - could i at this point throw in some hops? I didn't put any in the fermenter yet. I noticed another member above stated something about throwing in hops well into the ferment. I didn't have as much hops as i would have liked to have when i brewed.

Anybody have a suggestion on this?

Thanks.

mattwierz said:

I have another question regarding this - could i at this point throw in some hops? I didn't put any in the fermenter yet. I noticed another member above stated something about throwing in hops well into the ferment. I didn't have as much hops as i would have liked to have when i brewed.

Anybody have a suggestion on this?

Thanks.

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If you have krausen up, I wouldn't. First they would more than likely sit on top of the krausen and not touch your beer. Secondly there is more than likely still enough co2 being produced to drive off the hop aroma, rather than in your beer.

Hold off and se what the krausen does.

Ok. cool. thanks Rob. I appreciate it man.

after i posted that i thought the same thing - how would they get to the beer. I think that if it - krausen - settles down, i'll tranfer to a secondary and dry hop in there.

I appreciate it.

have a good one.