at what stage does krausen disipate

[RippinLt]

My brew has gone through the violent stage of fermentation and the airlock has stopped bubbling, and the temperature of the fermenting wort dropped a measurable amount. I know fermentation isnt complete but it has slowed dramatically. I still have a krausen layer similar to when it was a violent fermentation machine. Does this usually clear in the stage that I am in? Or did fermentation stop somewhat prematurely and the krausen should have subsided, leaving me with no option but to wait even longer? ( which is fine ) I wish i could rdwhahb but this is my first batch and i dont have any hb to enjoy yet!----which is the obvious source of my worrying!

 

[Beer_Guy]

Sounds like you have a runaway fermenter!!! I hope it stops before it consumes all of Philly.

Seriously though, Chill out and RDWHASBB (Relax Don't Worry Have a Store Bought Brew)

It should have no foam on top when done. Get a Hydrometer and start checking it next week. Once you get the same reading for 3 days then bottle.

 

[Nuggethead]

Beer guy is right, just relax. Sometimes the krausen remains for 10 or so days after hard fermentation ends. It wont hurt anything to leave it alone for 3 weeks and let the less active yeasts continue to do there thing and clean things up.

 

[RippinLt]

thanks for the reassurance gentlemen. ill give the rdwhasbb

 

[Revvy]

One thing to realize, unless you are brewing a high gravity beer, as you say, "Or did fermentation stop somewhat prematurely" rarely ever happens. Unless you have a major drop in temperature. The yeast doesn't just arbitrarily decide to stop what it's doing and take a vacation, that's an unfounded newbie fear, usually based on their idea that airlocks HAVE to bubble.

99% of the time the yeast will do it's job, and attenuate the beer fully if you let it. The rest of the time, especially with extract, it may stop at 1.020 or 1.030. But that's still not the yeast going gang busters on day one, and not, to a nervous new brewer's eyes, not behaving as it should be, the next day and therefore has stopped.

New brewers tend to think they need to hover over their fermenters and "do something" every minute of the day, and the minute something seems amiss, or different, they instantly think the yeast has stopped. But that is almost NEVER the case.

Fermentation is not always "dynamic," just because you don't SEE anything happening, doesn't mean that anything's wrong, and also doesn't mean that the yeast are still not working dilligantly away, doing what they've been doing for over 4,000 years.

Krausen, like airlock bubbling is another one of those things, that is not a good way to determine where along the fermentation spectrum a given beer is. The amount of krausen can vary for whatever reason, it can come quick and depart quickly or it can linger long after fermentation is complete, and it all be normal. Different yeasts produce different amounts of krausen, and even the same yeast can react differently in a totally different batch of beer, that could be due to the recipe, or the temperature, or the phase of the moon even.

For example, I posted this awhile ago...

I hd a wit beer that I pitched bottle harvested Hoegaarden yeast on Dec. 26th, that STILL had a 2" krausen on it three weeks later. I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010. So the beer was done, but the krausen still lingered. I finally gently swirled the beer to knock it down, and let it settle for another week before I bottled it. I'm not normally a fan of knocking them down, and usually let it do it naturally.

But some yeasts are low flocculating, and may have a difficult time. I figured since mine was bottle harvested, and I had pitched the starter at high krausen, maybe it was "genetically mutated" with the flocculation "gene" off or something. So I gently swirled it and let it fall.

I brewed another batch with another mason jars worth of that yeast several months later and had the same thing happen.

Beligan wits are notoriously long krausening.

So again, like the airlock it is not something that is cut and dried, it can vary from batch to batch and from yeast to yeast. Since it is a living micro organism, yeast do their own thing, and dance to their own drummers, nearly every time. So it can't be consistently relied on to tell you where your beer is at at any given moment.

Again the only reliable way to know where you beer is at is to take a gravity reading.

Or like many of us do simply relax, and trust the yeast to do their job. If you've given the yeast a good foundation, aerated and santitized properly, given the yeast the right nutrients, and pitched plenty of yeast to do the job, Then the yeast WILL do it's job, 99% of the time.

We really don't need to be all "figity wigity" and hover over everything, doing that we stress out too much, and we're tempted to try to fix something that more than likely doesn't need fixing at all.

You want to know how to ruin you beer? Mess with it.

I pitch my yeast, and come back 1 month later and bottle. And I've never had a beer not ferment for me....it really is that simple.

 

[dotnetdotcom]

Krausen is good. It's a protective blanket over your beer. Hope that it stays there as long as possible.

 

[Nuggethead]

Listen to what Revvy says, reviewing his posts have helped me more than anything else.