One NASTY looking fermantation

I know that after 17 batches I have not seen everything but this is my first brew with Wyeast British Ale 1098 and man - what a nasty looking krausen!

or it's infected with some strain of Chinese pig flu! It's weird it did not form around the outside of the carboy. Looks better this morning but more foamy (like beer foam) then the other yeasts I've used.

That is interesting. I've never seen a krausen do that before. Gotta love those little yeasties. Just more proof that living organisms are not always predictable.

Pics like that are the reason I still ferment in buckets!

Schlante,
Phillip

Pics like that are the reason I still ferment in buckets!

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LOL - yea - I think you have a good argument there!!

ugh. something is wrong with that one! After many years of brewing I have develped a fermentation monitor that enables me to see how the fermentation is progressing, from start to finish - temperature, pressure, SG, %sugar, % alcohol all in real-time. One brew that I have made many times is basic amber ale. It is always fun to compare batch trends to see where differences occurred during fermentation. No two batches are identical but when you follow the same recipe with good practices they are normally very similar. Yeast selection, temperature control and original gravity seem to play the biggest roles. I have had a couple bad batches. In one case I have no idea what happened - maybe did not get the equipment properly sanitized. In the other case my fermentation lock plugged and the fermenter went high pressure on me and the end result looked alot like this - I had some microbiologist friends tell me I crushed the yeast - I had no idea I could do that. I doubt that happened to you but thought I would throw my 2 cents at you. Hope it tastes better than it looks! Best wishes,

jmansfield - I have always said pay no attention to the looks but holy smoke this one seriously worries me a tad. Those white splotches looked like packing peanut debris!

I'll post of what it looks like now (when I get home). It looks much better but still a little odd "foamy" odd.

It SHOULD be ramping up today for the violent fermentation.

My only consolation is that I have never used this yeast or recipe.

Take that stopper out and smell it.

can I get my wife to smell it?

Well - it looks a little more normal and smells OK.

I know this was a while ago, but how did this batch turn out 4 years ago? I am using White Labs British Ale yeast and I got the same bicolor tan and white splotches that you did, except way more of them.

I would say it likely oxygenated hop oils. It looks like hop leaves floating at the top surrounded with coagulated hop oil, and not a matter of yeast at all. I dry hopped my first batch last week and it looked like this. Supposedly you need to sink the hops in a cheesecloth bag so they don't get any air.
Did you dry hop this batch?

What? ^ I have never heard of oxygenated hop oils!

Every Scottish or British liquid ale yeast I have used has looked very weird. The best way I can describe it is "cottage cheese"!

Germelli1 said:

What? ^ I have never heard of oxygenated hop oils!

Every Scottish or British liquid ale yeast I have used has looked very weird. The best way I can describe it is "cottage cheese"!

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Pretty accurate, cottage cheese and saturated sawdust.