Belgium witbier

[hog2up]

Brewed a Belgium wittier. Did my first yeast starter with wlp400. It fermented like crazy and was still going after 45 hours, so I pitched the entire 1 liter starter into my wit at 70F yesterday. Lag time was only 7hours and man is it turbulent inside the carboy! Orange peels are flying all over and have a good 4-5 inches of krausen. I hooked a blow off tube just in case, and am fermenting at 68f. So glad I used a starter- seems to really make a difference. Hopefully I pitched lots of yeast with the starter, as I have read the wit and wlp400 can be stubborn- sometimes requiring you to rouse the yeast after a week to finish it off. Can't wait to try it in 3-4 weeks from now.

 

[slarkin712]

I've had WL400 ferment fast and slow. Made a starter with both, but the one the fermented faster was a second generation. For the slow one I didn't rouse the yeast, but rather got the yeast in the huge krausen back into the beer by stirring it occasionally. It was still done in a less than three weeks, but the krausen never completely dropped.

 

[OmBoost]

I've also had very good results with 2nd generation of this yeast.
Harvested the cake from a witbier which fermented VERY slow. Made a starter with the harvested yeast and dumped it in a belgian dubbel with an OG of 1.072. Fermented like crazy for a week and clocked in at 1.015.

Definetly a fun yeast with a will of its own! Can be very smelly as well...

 

[hog2up]

I like the spicy orange smell being produced. Think the key is managing first 72 hour fermentation temp under 72 with this yeast and beer. Fermentation is still on a terror at 48 hours....gave it a little swirl this morning as it started to slow. It picked the activity up immediately.