rtstrider
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I've recently cultured up some Bells yeast from a 6 pack of two hearted ale. I used the following instructions https://www.homebrewtalk.com/Harvesting-Yeast-from-commercial-bottles.html (cold crashing/decanting as soon as it moved to the stir plate and every step up from there) and actually built it up to a 2 liter starter for insurance. I saved a half liter of slurry and ended up decanting the last 1.5 Liters and pitching that. It was a VERY hefty slurry. It was really thick and gelatinous...Almost a spitting image of the yeast you get from White Labs now. I brewed an Amber with an OG of 1.053 so it wasn't crazy high or anything. Anywho I pitched the slurry into 60f wort on 7/12 around 4pm and set the temp controller at 64f (let it free rise). It krausened at 12 hours and hit high krausen at day 3. I bumped the temperature up to 68f (let it free rise) yesterday morning (day 5) to help speed things up a tad. Just checked this morning and it's still going strong. The krausen is still in place, tons of co2 is being generated, etc. I'm going to let this ride out but wanted to know if anyone else had experiences with Bells yeast fermenting slower than a granny in the fast lane on a Tuesday? Today at 4pm will be 6 full days of fermentation and that's out of the norm for me at these temps/gravity. If this were a lager (fermenting at low temps) or a higher gravity ale then I'd definitely expect this sluggishness but not a low/mid gravity ale in the mid 60's lol.