Darker line of beer above beer in fermenter?

[Beeker29]

just started brewing so i'm new this whole thing.

I started off with a Caribou slobber i chilled the wort to 75 then added half the packet of the yeast which i soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and then added that to the wort once it got around 75.

i went to bed last night with my airlock on (not knowing it was going to have a blowout in the middle of the night)

i cleaned up the mess and sanitized my blowout hose, plugged that into the cap and into a bucket of sanitizer.

i check on it earlier today to make sure everything was good but the C02 output has slowed down a lot. 1 bubble every 30-40 seconds

i now have a weird darker line of beer floating above the fermenting beer since i'm new to this i have no idea if this is Ok or i messed up.

pics of what i'm talking about

You can see the darker/carmel looking beer on top

 

[Konn]

LOL...the old beercano...pretty sure most of us have been there at some point.

In terms of that line...I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but it's probably ok. At least now you know to use a blow off setup next time (or a bigger primary fermenter).

 

[Beeker29]

well i know now that i should have used to tube from the start it was my bad honestly i watched enough video's to know better.

my next question is that my C02 output has seemed to stop and i can barely see any activity with the caribou slobber, i'm not sure if i'm just being impatient or i really screwed up it had plenty of activity after the blowout and now it has slowed by about 80% if not more.

i'm only a little over 24 hours into the fermentation with the slobber, but my hefewiezen is doing just fine but had a smaller blowout, not sure what is going on with the carribou slobber

 

[freisste]

That line is where the krausen was. It has fallen which is typical. You'll just have to clean that crap off when you rack to secondary or bottling bucket.

Regarding activity - stop looking at it. Your beer needs about two more weeks of sitting in a dark, cool place. Let the yeast chew on it a little longer. In two weeks, check the gravity. After a couple more days, check it again. If it's the same, carry on with your brewing plan.

I repeat, stop looking for bubbles. Everything sounds fine, your beer just needs time.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Beeker29]

Thanks for the input i will let it do it's thing then

 

[flars]

For your next brew have the wort at 60° - 62° before you pitch the yeast. Yeast cells are healthier and work more effectively if they warm up to the fermentation temperature rather than pitched in a hot wort which needs to be cooled to fermentation temperature. Hold the wort temperature below 66° - 68° during active fermentation for ales to prevent off flavors.
Ale yeasts will produce a better product if the fermentation temperature is at the lower temperature range for the yeast.

 

[kidmeatball]

That looks like a line of clear beer to me. The yeast in your beer is what's making it cloudy, and as the fermentation process goes on, the yeast will drop to the bottom of the vessel, leaving your beer nice and clear.

 

[SeeAliceBrewery]

My Caribou Slobber is a lot darker appearing than yours....I wonder why this could be. The only thing I can see so far that we did different was I have kept my wort around 64 to 65 degrees....and added the entire packet of yeast as the instructions stated. I too had to rush to put the blow tube on...seems common with this brew from what I have read. My slobber finally stopped bubbling today which is day 9.

 

[freisste]

@SeeAlice: Your beer looks like it has cleared, so it will look much darker because there is no yeast in suspension to reflect light. It will be considerably lighter in a glass because you will look through 2-3" be 12-14".

When I say "no yeast" I mean no FLOCCULATED yeast. There is actually still a LOT of yeast in suspension which will give your beer more flavor and allow you to bottle carb.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Beeker29]

my beer has become more dark over the last day or so, this is in a 1 gallon fermenter so color may be off some because of glass thickness and i used a flash on my camera

 

[Beeker29]

This was my first brew so far 3 days in fermenter and it smells like beer, so i think all is well.

I was just worried that the blowout i had caused an issue with losing too much yeast, also the c02 output on the slobber dropped so quickly i thought i had done something wrong.

my temps are between 60-68 not 100% ideal but it's what im working with at the moment.

 

[SeeAliceBrewery]

Everything I have read thus far is you probably did not lose any yeast....just the bi products of the little yeasties doing their work. Seriously....I think almost every Caribou Slobber I have read has resulted in a blowout...so we should both be good man.

 

[Beeker29]

yeah from the reviews i read i should have just done the blowout tube from the start i got about 3 weeks to go before bottling and conditioning i'll be sure to post back up once i get this bottled up and tasted

 

[Beeker29]

my slobber is now as dark as yours and smells like BEER can't wait to try it out, just started the cold crash on it today and will be moving to a secondary for a week or two before i bottle it up, can't wait to taste this.

 

[flars]

my slobber is now as dark as yours and smells like BEER can't wait to try it out, just started the cold crash on it today and will be moving to a secondary for a week or two before i bottle it up, can't wait to taste this.

What will you gain by cold crashing and racking to a secondary??

 

[Beeker29]

it was recomended to me from a local HBST he said he always cold crashes before he does his secondaries and then bottle's, i was originally going to bottle just from the primary but i'll try this method out as i assume it will give the beer a little longer to age before bottling which will hopefully end up with a better product after the fact.

i'm new at all of this but i figured since he know's a lot more than i do about brewing that it isn't going to hurt anything other than the time it take's from start to finish

cold crashing is just meant to remove any floating debris from the beer so it ends up being clearer and cleaner before bottling

 

[Beeker29]

i'm currently fermenting.


Black IPA. northern brewer
Dead Ringer IPA clone. northern brewer
Hefewiezen. Northern brewer
Carribous slobber. northern brewer
Doudle belgian. modified recipe.
Golden belgain. modified recipe
Chocolate beer (custom recipe).
Amber ale (custom recipe).