Krausen Holding On

Hey all,

Brewed Sunday night - strong activity Monday morning and was petering out by Tuesday. I was out of town until last night and came home to see the krausen still holding on strong. A good 2+ inches thick. I haven't seen this before.

Brown Ale OG 1.045 - FG 1.01X (can't see through the krausen)
Yeast WyEast 1056

I've only used this yeast once before and I know they talk about it having low flocculation. Would that have relevance to the krausen or is that specific to suspension in the brew? Any way, didn't happen last time I used this yeast, though it was an APA not Brown.

Ideas - concerns - experience?

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Can you take a sample out of the carboy? Then you can just get rid of any kausen, right? I might be misunderstanding.

More specifically, the fermentation seems to be finished and the krausen has not subsided. I have not experienced this before and don't know if my brew is telling me something.

Without an accurate reading, it is impossible to tell really. your 1.01x could be 1.019 which I would say you are not done fermenting, or it could be 1.010 which you probably would be. I would give it a few more days, it is probably still fermenting...the krausen should subside.

I just recently encountered the same problem. After 2 weeks there was still Krausen and i was a bit concerned. All other signs of fermentation had subsided. Little airlock activity and just looked done but the krausen was holding on. Took a sample to do a gravity reading using a beer thief. FG was 1.012 so it seemed done to me. The next day the krausen was almost completely gone. Seems like it just needed to be poked at with the beer theif and it happily went away. Maybe my experience will help you some.

same thing here with AAH! (Another Awesome Hefeweizen). The Krausen was just holding on forever. i even rolled the carboy just a tad and it was like a big clump just sitting on top of the wort. it is finally settling today.

Thanks guys. The Gravity is 1.014 after 7 days and still has the krausen. I'm planning not to rack the beer until it does subside even though it is finished.

Deathbrewer or Rick91981 - how long did it take to finally subside? What yeast did you use? Thanks again - always nice to know you aren't the only one.

mine took a total of 10 days it pretty much finished (i thought) after 6 days and then the krausen held for another 4 days without dropping. then it dropped quickly over 2 days. i think it's ready to bottle I'm going to check the gravity right now...

EDIT: i used WLP300 with a 1 liter starter

I've racked off to a secondary with a heavy krausen before. Some krausens are literally like sudsy pudding. So heavy in fact that I think there is more yeast sediment above than below.

Once your gravity readings are static for 3 days straight, go ahead and rack to a secondary. Your siphoning tube will stop sucking when that foam descends and hits the end of the cane.

If you like to harvest your yeast, make sure to swirl that krausen into the yeast mix at the bottom.

About 12-14 days it stopped showing major airlock activity. Krausen was still persistent however. A few days later i took a gravity reading. By the next day most of the krausen was gone. I think poking through it with the beer theif may have broken it up or something. Not entirely sure if thats the cause or if it was coincidence, I'm pretty much a newbie.

Yeast used was White Labs Belgian Wit

Hey all ----

14 days after pitching....
Gravity has been the same for 8 days....
Krausen finally fell during the day. So ...
No worries.

Final update from my brew.

Primary 2 weeks (13 days before krausen fell)
Secondary 1 week.
Bottled / Conditioned 4 weeks.
This brew ended up fine. Nothing abnormal in taste or odor.

I guess it was just one of those things.

I've got a belgian WIT that's been in primary for 2 weeks and krausen is holding strong. It's like a big fat pancake and not budging. I'll finally take a hydro and just rack the dang thing if it's good to go.

Bobby_M said:

I've got a belgian WIT that's been in primary for 2 weeks and krausen is holding strong. It's like a big fat pancake and not budging. I'll finally take a hydro and just rack the dang thing if it's good to go.

Click to expand...

I've had them so thick you could walk on them.

I've racked after 8-10 days with static gravity readings and good results.

Wow, I was actually going to make another thread about this until I did a search and realized this is pretty common. In my case the krausen has only been there 4 days but it's completely different from my last batch where the krausen fell after day 2 so I was a little concerned this time.

One question though. Assuming this doesn't fall and my ferment finishes up, would there be any problem pitching on this yeast cake with all that krausen on top..? Also, has anybody repitched on US-05..? I know it's cheap and I do have another pack but it would be convenient to just leave it in and reuse. Any experience/advice or constructive criticism welcome...