Is my beer infected?

[vash68]

Long time reader, first time poster with beginner knowledge level.

This is my second ale, so I am not sure why I still had thick krausen in primary after fermentation was over.

I brewed belgian ale trappist style last weekend, all-grain with WYEAST #3787 TRAPPIST HIGH GRAVITY with 1.1 liter starter, crash cooled, decanted, then pitched at 65F.
Primary fermentation completed in 7 days at 68F.
I hit all the numbers per recipe: OG 1.051, FG 1.012.

When I was racking into secondary I noticed that there was still a quite thick krausen on top of beer, which I did not see during fermentation due to using opaque fermenting tank by Spiedel.

After I racked beer from under krausen through a lower spigot, there was a healthy looking yeast cake on the bottom. The fermenter/krausen/yeast cake smelled a bit nasty with sweet fruits, which seems to fit this yeast profile. However during fermentation the airlock smelled heavenly with fruity beer.

I set secondary into a 46F fridge to clear for the next 3 weeks.

Beer in a secondary looks a bit muddy and tastes well attenuated and absolutely correct for pilsner grain with saaz hops.

1. Does this look normal for this yeast?
2. If this was indeed an infection, should I still chill secondary for 3 weeks and then taste it? If it tastes good then, should I go ahead and bottle it?


Here are the pictures

After draining beer, you can see some yeast cake on the bottom:

Beer looks good in secondary (BB):

 

[kylevester]

Looks fine to me. Nothing I see in there looks bad. Sometimes the krausen won't fully drop and that just looks foamy and nothing to worry about.

 

[nicegut]

Protein! No problem there!

 

[vash68]

Good deal, thanks guys, I need to layoff my reading which says that krausen disappears by the end of primary fermentation.

Then how do people go about left over krausen like in my case when fermenting in a single vessel (say conical) after they dump yeast from under beer? They just let it be there until bottling time without affecting beer flavor?

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Good deal, thanks guys, I need to layoff my reading which says that krausen disappears by the end of primary fermentation.

Then how do people go about left over krausen like in my case when fermenting in a single vessel (say conical) after they dump yeast from under beer? They just let it be there until bottling time without affecting beer flavor?

The settled yeast at the bottom won't hurt a thing. Just be careful when you rack your beer for bottling/kegging so you don't stir it back in.

 

[Revvy]

You took a gravity reading, which showed you the truth. I've had bottle harvested hoegaarden yeast where the krausen remained for 3 weeks, even though my two consecutive gravity readings showed that fermentation is complete. That's why I usually caution folks to gauge fermentation by krausens, I've also seen them fall before fermentation was complete as well. Like you saw with your hydrometer, that really is the only way to know what's going on.

 

[duckmanco]

If you want to see krausen not fall, check out wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale - pitch it into anything and watch chunky, rocky, thick dense krausen nearly refuse to fall back into the beer even after 3-4 weeks. Ridiculously great yeast though.

 

[vash68]

Thanks guys, I am relieved