Holy fermentation! WOW!

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DunklesWeissbier

DunklesWeissbier

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I decided to try to primary in a 5 gallon glass carboy yesterday for the first time and all I can say is WOW! I woke up this morning to an overflowing airlock and quickly put a blowoff tube on. Its a Hex Nut Brown from MW with the Munton's 6 gm dry yeast.

This thing is going crazy! It looks more like a jacuzzi inside than beer. I see now why some like the carboys. It is quite a show:) I keep finding myself just staring at it.
 
DunklesWeissbier said:
Funny, I was thinking about that. Maybe tomorrow if it still going strong.:mug:
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Look out for the Kolsch yeast - it is beyond crazy! I think I counted about 5 bubbles per second from a 3/16" ID tube. It was nuts!
 
Yeast is great. I made my starter (32oz) for my last Cascade IPA (US-05) the night before brewday. Looking at the starter the next day, right before pitching, there wasn't a krausen and a little layer of yeast on the bottom. Thinking not much was going on, I shook the bottle before pitching to get the layer off the bottom and my 1L bottle damn near exploded on me. The yeast literally burst out of there into the fermentation vessel as I took the lid off. Sneaky little bastards.
 
I just filled my first glass carboy yesterday afternoon, I too am hoping for a show like you are getting that way I can watch that instead of the television today. :)
 
you wont be dissapointed. that's pretty much the best part about owning a carboy is getting to see the volcanic first few days of fermentation. Especially if you left a little (or a lot in the case of my last batch) of break material in your fermentor.
 
I've got a great show going on right now with S-04 in an IPA. The temps have been from about 66-70ish (warming up here already) and it's been going like crazy for two days now.

I wish I had a glass carboy for this show....
 
Sadly it has died down quite a bit this morning:( But what a show it was for a while.

I may have to pick me up some 6 gallon carboys in the future.
 
dttk0009 said:
Yeast is great. I made my starter (32oz) for my last Cascade IPA (US-05) the night before brewday. Looking at the starter the next day, right before pitching, there wasn't a krausen and a little layer of yeast on the bottom. Thinking not much was going on, I shook the bottle before pitching to get the layer off the bottom and my 1L bottle damn near exploded on me. The yeast literally burst out of there into the fermentation vessel as I took the lid off. Sneaky little bastards.
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Thanks for this... I about spit my coffee out. :mug:

I have a bunch of carboys (couple primaries and more then a couple secondaries) I use the 6 and 6.5 gal for primary as the extra room saves me from using a blow off, although i have had a wheat beer reach the air lock! :rockin:

I also love the show, even when it starts slowing you can still see it moving around. been more then a few times my wife asks me what the heck I'm doing as I just watch the show.
Just AWESOME!
 
I try to pitch (as most do) ~ correct pitching rates at the correct temp into aerated wort (when I'm not too drunk from drinking homebrew while brewing) and almost always end up with fermentation like that, regardless of the yeast strain. It is a sight to behold!
 
Noob question: what is the chunky stuff I see swimming around in there so enthusiastically? Is it break material, clumps of yeast, or what?

I have a 1040 bitter in my 6 gal carboy right now, approaching 48 hours after pitching with Nottingham. It's been fermenting steadily at 68 - 70 and was pretty wild for a time. Now the chunks have disappeared (is that flocculation? again, I'm not sure what the chunks are) and the krausen has dropped from ~2 inches to <1 cm. Looks like a quick fermentation, hopefully complete.
 
tonyolympia said:
Noob question: what is the chunky stuff I see swimming around in there so enthusiastically? Is it break material, clumps of yeast, or what?

I have a 1040 bitter in my 6 gal carboy right now, approaching 48 hours after pitching with Nottingham. It's been fermenting steadily at 68 - 70 and was pretty wild for a time. Now the chunks have disappeared (is that flocculation? again, I'm not sure what the chunks are) and the krausen has dropped from ~2 inches to <1 cm. Looks like a quick fermentation, hopefully complete.
Click to expand...

That's the yeast clumping up before they settle for good. All part of flocculation. And the krausen usually settles down to just a little after 3-4 days. Sometimes longer.
 
I grabbed a quick clip of my "light ale" doing its thing... and even added some music.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
tonyolympia said:
Noob question: what is the chunky stuff I see swimming around in there so enthusiastically? Is it break material, clumps of yeast, or what?

I have a 1040 bitter in my 6 gal carboy right now, approaching 48 hours after pitching with Nottingham. It's been fermenting steadily at 68 - 70 and was pretty wild for a time. Now the chunks have disappeared (is that flocculation? again, I'm not sure what the chunks are) and the krausen has dropped from ~2 inches to <1 cm. Looks like a quick fermentation, hopefully complete.
Click to expand...

Flocculating yeast.
 
I woke up this morning to my AHBS Anniversary Stout all over my ferm chamber. This is AFTER starting off with a blow off tube. The tube and the lock piece was sitting in a couple inches of wort! Thank god that mess was contained.
 
i just put a stout in my 6.5 gallon bucket fermenter, i only left about an inch and a half of headspace. i did run a blowoff tube into a 1/2 gallon jar of water, then i got to thinking i better set that jar in a bucket. good thing i did, the jar had overflowed with foam, bubbling like crazy. from now on secondary containment for sure. my brewing days may have been put to an end by swmbo.
 
unionrdr said:
That's the yeast clumping up before they settle for good. All part of flocculation. And the krausen usually settles down to just a little after 3-4 days. Sometimes longer.
Click to expand...

I wanted to follow the odd Fullers fermentation schedule talked about on "Can You Brew It?" and discussed extensively on HBT: pitch at 63, hold at 68 until 1/2 OG drops, cool to 63, and when the wort reaches 1/5 of OG, crash cool to 43 for 2 days. However, I don't have good enough temperature control for that, and I'm skittish about bottling with any remaining gravity points. So I'm just planning to ferment high until FG, hoping to get the Nottingham to produce some interesting esters. (Say that five times fast.)

I also wanted to retain some diacetyl flavor in my bitter, so instead of following the Fullers schedule, I was thinking that I would skip primary conditioning and just bottle after three consecutive days at 1010. That would make a total fermentation time of about a week.

Any thoughts on this plan?
 
It'll probably take more than a week to reach FG. If the upper range of that yeast is 68F,then maybe try to hold it at 65F,so you don't produce too many esters that may not be to your liking. I think bottling at true FG should help retain some of them. But the brew will still clean up after itself,albeit to a lesser extent.
 
unionrdr said:
It'll probably take more than a week to reach FG. If the upper range of that yeast is 68F,then maybe try to hold it at 65F,so you don't produce too many esters that may not be to your liking. I think bottling at true FG should help retain some of them. But the brew will still clean up after itself,albeit to a lesser extent.
Click to expand...

Thanks, uniondr.
 
dttk0009 said:
Yeast is great. I made my starter (32oz) for my last Cascade IPA (US-05) the night before brewday. Looking at the starter the next day, right before pitching, there wasn't a krausen and a little layer of yeast on the bottom. Thinking not much was going on, I shook the bottle before pitching to get the layer off the bottom and my 1L bottle damn near exploded on me. The yeast literally burst out of there into the fermentation vessel as I took the lid off. Sneaky little bastards.
Click to expand...

FYI - yeast starters are not recommended for dry yeast

they should be rehydrated in warm/hot water and then pitched into the wort
 
the yeast are packaged and dried with the appropriate glycol and nutrient reserves to immediately get to work once rehydrated and pitched into the wort

you waste the reserves and viability if you pitch into a starter 1st
 
That's false. I've done it,& it worked very well on my Summer Pale ale. They're gunna be changing there books. We had this argument a while back. I'm just saying it works well,& doesn't harm the yeast. But I only let it go for 3.5 hours,as the yeast was from 09 & needed to wake up.
 
Not if you pitch the whole starter,the nutrients got them going again in my case. But only after going into a small starter,as they were just about gone. The sachet was from june 09. And the dry yeasts we've used take 12-24hrs+ to finally get to work. So a small starter & pitching the whole thing works fine for me,better than pitching dry. Unless the yeast is really fresh,ime.
 
just because it worked doesn't mean it's ideal

you can pitch 1/2 a pack of dry yeast dry in a huge beer and it will probably ferment, doesn't mean its the best thing to do

the info about no starters comes from yeast experts - i'll take their word over anecdotal experience any day

no one is advocating pitching dry - rehydrating is ~90deg water per Manufacturers rec's is ideal
 
from Jamil/Mr. Malty - http://www.mrmalty.com/starter_faq.php

Another case where you generally don't want to make a starter is with dry yeast. It is usually cheaper and easier to just buy more dry yeast than it would be to make a starter large enough for most dry yeast packs. Many experts suggest that placing dry yeasts in a starter would just deplete the reserves that the yeast manufacturer worked so hard to build into their product. For dry yeasts, just do a proper rehydration in tap water, do not make a starter.
Click to expand...
 
terrapinj said:
FYI - yeast starters are not recommended for dry yeast

they should be rehydrated in warm/hot water and then pitched into the wort
Click to expand...

Ah ok, thanks for the heads up. What's the reasoning behind this?
Regarding my Cascade IPA, it seems to be chugging along at light speed.
 

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