WLP 002 English Ale

Had a pretty interesting experience with this yeast recently and thought i'd share.

I brewed up a big ol' black IPA last week using this yeast and pitched my 2 L starter once the boil was over. I come back not even 2 days later to brew up another batch to find that the krausen has fallen and looks as tho fermentation has stopped. Thinking my yeast just **** out on my I bumped the temp up a few degrees in hopes to kickstart them beasties back into suspension.

Forward 6 hours>brew day complete>decide to check the gravity of the IPA. This is what I definitely didn't expect. OG was 1.084 and it is down to 1.020!!! in ~20 hours into fermentation!!! Terminal gravity for this beer is 1.018 so she's basically done. I didn't do anything crazy with this, fermented at 68 using ambient air temp and used my 2 L starter (which I thought was actually a little short on cell count). ANyone else have this experience? I know this yeast is highly flocculant but sheeeesh!

 

This strain and 007 are freakishly fast. 2 days seems a bit extreme but I'm not too surprised, especially since your ambient temp was 68F. I'd be on the lookout for diacetyl. 002 without controlled temps at the end will floc out before cleaning up diacetyl. If you were only controlling ambient temp then it's likely that your yeast dropped out way too early when temps dropped after the active phase of fermentation. Again, 002 is notorious for this so you need to be able to ramp your temp up after the first day or 2 or you could have diacetyl problems.

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so i'm planning on kegging in the next couple of days. would it be wise to up my temp a couple degrees to try and remove that diacetyl or is it too late now?

 

If the yeast have already flocculated then you are pretty much stuck. I'm not so sure that they will clean up with a temperature rise if they have gone to sleep, even if you rouse them. Give it a taste before you worry.

 

yea the yeast dropped out long long ago, good looks.

 

to update, it tasted verrrry good going to bottle. I've never finished a full hydrometer sample except for this time around, even wanted to go back for more!! good sign i'm thinking...

brewed a stout up the other day as well and THAT even finished in 3 days also!!! used wyeast 1968 and fermented at 68. absolutely killing these fermentations for whatever reason. brewing up a barleywine today as to jump on this hot streak and put it to good use.

 

i've actually been stepping my yeast up right outta the package instead of washing it after a ferment. seems easier for me and i get 3 or 4 beers outta one smack pack/vial.

thanks for the link. interesting the 2 strains are similar like that, here i thought i was killing it and doing something extra special! somewhat reassuring still however.