New Fermentation Record (n00bs, pay attention)

I made a hefe last weekend with a new pack of Weihenstephaner Weizen yeast (Wyeast 3068) and a large starter. It finished in 4 days or so---1.055 to 1.014. So this past Saturday, I racked it to a keg and brewed a dunkelweizen, OG @ 1.056. Strained the wort onto the hefe cake around 2:30pm on Saturday and it was bubbling within 20 minutes. It's 57ºf in my brewery, and the aerobic activity kept the wort up around 67ºf. I expected it to blow off, but it never did. By yesterday afternoon, it was slowing down and the krausen appeared to be falling already. I checked the gravity around 3:00pm and it was at 1.016---which is probably where it'll finish because of the 12oz of carapils.

So, there you go. 1.056 to 1.016 in 24 hours.

Yeah, yeast cakes are the fastest I've had also. It is amazing to see activity that quickly...

I had an IPA-on-the-cake do 18 hours. At least what wasn't on the walls, floor & ceiling. Blow-off tube too small.

Indeed, and yeast cakes are the cheapest and easiest thing possible....just don't clean your fermenter, cool the wort and pitch it onto the yeast.

This is why I started making my starters in my primary. I believe that pitching the wort rather than the yeast aerates pretty darn well and stirs the yeast up evenly. (I dump the wort from 3 feet up or so)

So now that you've done this, I want you to keep me updated to try to dispell the myth about over-pitching, since I think Hefe yeast is perfect for this type of experiment.

I'm just interested in how the fruity flavors of the yeast come out with a cake-pitch.

Is this the same recipe you used for your Stunkleweizen? That beer was phe-friggin'-nomenal.

PseudoChef said:

So now that you've done this, I want you to keep me updated to try to dispell the myth about over-pitching, since I think Hefe yeast is perfect for this type of experiment.

I'm just interested in how the fruity flavors of the yeast come out with a cake-pitch.

Is this the same recipe you used for your Stunkleweizen? That beer was phe-friggin'-nomenal.

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yeah, we'll have to see---it would be the perfect experiment, because the recipe is the Stunkelweizen recipe (glad you liked that...it's one of my favorites!), but the first one was a slurry + starter, whereas this one is a cake. So we'll have to see. Luckily, I still have a couple bottles of the first batch floating around, so I can do a side-by-side comp when this one is ready.

Large amounts of yeast do speed things along. When I visisted Stone Brewery they said their some of the ales fermented out in 3 days and they moved them to a bright tank.

I pitched on a WLP300 cake 4 times last summer, brews 3 and 4 were all done within 24 hours. That sure was fun to watch.

Evan! said:

yeah, we'll have to see---it would be the perfect experiment, because the recipe is the Stunkelweizen recipe (glad you liked that...it's one of my favorites!), but the first one was a slurry + starter, whereas this one is a cake. So we'll have to see. Luckily, I still have a couple bottles of the first batch floating around, so I can do a side-by-side comp when this one is ready.

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Cool, I still got a lot of fruit from the one you gave me. It's second in the queue of brews to do since I need a low-hopped session.

I want to pitch my next batch on top of my Wit. I am cautious about doing this because it was a high gravity brew, and I don't know if the yeast is pooped out. Should I be able to get away with a cream ale for instance with an OG of about 1.050? The wit was supposed to be at 1.078 but i measured it at 1.062.

1.062 isn't that bad...

On Saturday I dumped a RIS onto a cake from a blonde. That thing took off in less than 15 mins! It still blowing out some but it is a fairly big beer.

yall must get super yeast. Even with a big starter or yeast cake I have never had one finish that fast. I think 4 days is the fastest I have had.

Ryanh1801 said:

yall must get super yeast. Even with a big starter or yeast cake I have never had one finish that fast. I think 4 days is the fastest I have had.

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thangs juuust mooove a liiiil slowwwr down in taaayyyyhaaassss...

damn that is impressive. never used to pitch a starter and they took 24hrs to start. started making starters and I was down to a few hours then. well I did a hodge podge batch. half yeast slurry from a british ale yeast 1098 and half yeast slurry from american ale yeast 1056. total about 3 cups solid slurry. 25 min and it was rockin, blew the airlock out. put the 3/8" hose in and it shot out of that like a fire hose lol.