Is there a list of big krausen yeasts that tend to require blow off tube?

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TkmLinus

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For quite a while us-05 has been my go to yeast, I get a 2-3 inch krausen, it falls, then that is it. I decided to start trying different yeasts and the last 2 (Juice and K-97) decided that my 1.25 gallons of extra head space in the fermenter was not enough and blew through the airlock. Is there any easy way to tell if a yeast strain will have a high likelihood of climbing out of the fermenter? Is there a list somewhere of these strains? All I could find were threads where strains would be mentioned, but no place with an easy reference. Thanks in advance!

Edit: I have had so many good responses that I edited the list started by Holden Caulfield below to include the other entries so far. As mentioned by u81doughboy below there are several variables that can impact krausen size. This of course is based on anecdotal evidence and meant to give rough guidance on what to expect from a yeast strain. Feel free to comment below and I will adjust as necessary, thanks everyone!

Need a blowoff - a beast that will crawl out of anything...
  • Wyeast 1469 (Timothy Taylor strain)
  • Wyeast 1007 (German ale)
  • WLP530 (Westmalle Strain)
  • WLP540 (Rochefort Strain)
  • SafAle K-97
  • Imperial Yeast A38 Juice
  • Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
  • Voss Kveik
  • Kolsch 2565
  • Lalbrew Verdant IPA
  • Imperial Whiteout
  • Bell's house yeast
  • Wyeast 3787
Need a blowoff - not like the beasts, but still made it out of my fermenter
  • Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II)
  • WLP 530 Belgian Monastery
  • Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes
No blowoff experienced for my situation, but close (basically all the other ale yeasts)...
  • Nottingham
  • Wyeast 1968, WLP002
  • S-05, WLP001
  • S-04
  • WLP007
  • Wyeast 1084, WLP004
  • WLP090
No blowoff experienced and not close (basically all the lagers)
  • Wyeast 2124, WLP 830, 34-70 (Weihenstephaner strain)
  • Wyeast 2278
  • Wyeast 2206
  • WLP833 (Ayinger Strain)
  • WLP800 (Note, this is suppose to be the same as 2001, but genetic testing has show that it is not the same as it is an ale yeast)
  • Wyeast 2001 (Pilsner Urkell H-Strain)
  • Wyeast 2112, WLP810 (California Common)
  • WLP029 (Kolsch)
 
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I haven't seen one, but it's a good idea! If someone starts a list like that, I vote for Bell's house yeast to be on it. I almost never need blowoff tubes, but Bell's yeast blows through my head space every single time. It has the fluffiest krausen I've ever seen.
 
I've never seen a list like the one you're thinking of. It's probably a good idea although it depends on the type of fermenter you're using, temperature control amongst other variables. Besides the Belgian yeasts (which IMO always require a blow-off) I tend to put a blow-off on all higher gravity brews (1.060+) as a precaution.
Good luck.
 
Also, as some of the other posters above have alluded, if you've got an aggressive fermentation and your recipe/process created a lot of foam-positive "schtuff," that's obviously going to have a lot of impact, too. So high temps, high protein of appropriate particle size, etc...
 
Imperial juice yeast is super similar to wyeast London ale but I really like imperial because they advertise 200B cells. The first time I used it I pitched a little warm at 70 and with in 5 hours the air lock was so bonkers I put a blow off tub on. I used it two more times and pitched a little cooler and did not have the same experience. I love this yeast for hazy IPAs
 
All yeasts! All yeasts should be on that list. Always use a blow-off tube if unless you have ample headspace. A 1:1 relationship between yeast and blow-off is wrong. I think grain bill, gravity, hop quantity, wort nutrient mix, headspace, etc all contribute to blow-off.
 
Add Imperial Whiteout to the list. 1st pic was 1 hour after pitching into my starter. 2nd pic was the following morning.
20210504_203229.jpg
20210505_094219.jpg
 
Per my experience, below is a list of yeast where you should always use a blowoff and those that I have not had an issue with. Note - I ferment in a SS Brewtech 7 gal Brewbucket with approximately 5.4 gallons of wort so a significant amount of headspace. I also have very good temperature control. Finally, I typically brew beers with OGs < 1.055 except for the Belgian beers. If you have less headspace, ferment at higher temperatures, and brew high gravity beers then you should use a blowoff until you know for sure what is safe for your system and process.

Need a blowoff - a beast that will crawl out of anything...
  • Wyeast 1469 (Timothy Taylor strain)
  • Wyeast 1007 (German ale)
  • WLP530, Wyeast 3787 (Westmalle Strain)
  • WLP540 (Rochefort Strain)
Need a blowoff - not like the beasts, but still made it out of my fermenter
  • Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II)
No blowoff experienced for my situation, but close (basically all the other ale yeasts)...
  • Nottingham
  • Wyeast 1968, WLP002
  • S-05, WLP001
  • S-04
  • WLP007
  • Wyeast 1084, WLP004
  • WLP090
No blowoff experienced and not close (basically all the lagers)
  • Wyeast 2124, WLP 830, 34-70 (Weihenstephaner strain)
  • Wyeast 2278
  • Wyeast 2206
  • WLP833 (Ayinger Strain)
  • WLP800 (Note, this is suppose to be the same as 2001, but genetic testing has show that it is not the same as it is an ale yeast)
  • Wyeast 2001 (Pilsner Urkell H-Strain)
  • Wyeast 2112, WLP810 (California Common)
  • WLP029 (Kolsch)
 
Last edited:
Per my experience, below is a list of yeast where you should always use a blowoff and those that I have not had an issue with. Note - I ferment in a SS Brewtech 7 gal Brewbucket with approximately 5.4 gallons of wort so a significant amount of headspace. I also have very good temperature control. Finally, I typically brew beers with OGs < 1.055 except for the Belgian beers. If you have less headspace, ferment at higher temperatures, and brew high gravity beers then you should use a blowoff until you know for sure what is safe for your system and process.

Need a blowoff - a beast that will crawl out of anything...
  • Wyeast 1469 (Timothy Taylor strain)
  • Wyeast 1007 (German ale)
  • WLP530 (Westmalle Strain)
  • WLP540 (Rochefort Strain)
Need a blowoff - not like the beasts, but still made it out of my fermenter
  • Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II)
No blowoff experienced for my situation, but close (basically all the other ale yeasts)...
  • Nottingham
  • Wyeast 1968, WLP002
  • S-05, WLP001
  • S-04
  • WLP007
  • Wyeast 1084, WLP004
  • WLP090
No blowoff experienced and not close (basically all the lagers)
  • Wyeast 2124, WLP 830, 34-70 (Weihenstephaner strain)
  • Wyeast 2278
  • Wyeast 2206
  • WLP833 (Ayinger Strain)
  • WLP800 (Note, this is suppose to be the same as 2001, but genetic testing has show that it is not the same as it is an ale yeast)
  • Wyeast 2001 (Pilsner Urkell H-Strain)
  • Wyeast 2112, WLP810 (California Common)
  • WLP029 (Kolsch)
Thanks for putting this together! I copied and modified the list to add the other entries and added it to the end of my first post on this thread.
 
You can have a good guess at how an unknown yeast will behave by thinking about its origin. Remember that ale yeast are traditionally called "top-fermenting" - in northern Europe beer was made in open fermenters with a fairly quick fermentation and yeast for the next was cropped off the top. That selects for buoyant, vigorous yeast which will want to blow off when confined to a homebrew bucket. So as a first assumption, you'd expect most Belgian yeast to be vigorous, and a lot of Northern English ones, many of which are actually from the saison family (WLP026, WLP037, WLP038). And they get even more lively if you get away from the US homebrew labs - something like Brewlab CC is like Genghis Khan in its desire to escape its current boundaries.

Then again, a lot of British yeasts, particularly down south, are derived from Whitbread B which was selected for continuous fermenters as it's not very top-croppy. So they will tend to be less vigorous. You can take that further with a lot of US yeasts, which have been cropped from the bottom of conicals for a few decades which has selected for less buoyant forms. That applies to lager yeast only more so. I've got some Wyeast 1217-PC West Coast IPA fermenting at the moment and the tide-mark is barely 2cm (3/4") from the surface.

So blame the shiny steel tanks for forcing ale yeast to evolve away from its natural tendency to produce lots of barm. Is it even craft beer if you're not open-fermenting in tanks hewn from slabs of rock, like this Taddy Porter at Sam Smiths?

1620915061035.png
 
I used K97 for the first time a couple of weeks ago, this was less than 24 hours after pitching yeast in a 7.5G Fermonster. I did rehydrate.

Hooked up a couple of kegs on day 4 to purge Star San out of, and ended up with some gunk in the keg. Heavy hitter for sure.

View attachment 728423
Is that picture of the Star Gazer? This is the beer that inspired me to post the question. The K97 made a nice yeast deposit on the top of my fermentation chamber and the lid of my big mouth bubbler had it's own yeast cake on top of the fermenter!
 
Is that picture of the Star Gazer? This is the beer that inspired me to post the question. The K97 made a nice yeast deposit on the top of my fermentation chamber and the lid of my big mouth bubbler had it's own yeast cake on top of the fermenter!

Yep, it sure is!

And ya..same thing happened to me.
 
Here's an update -- Wyeast 3787 12 hours after pitching into 6 gallons of 1.080 Tripel... that was only a 1 liter starter!
Fermentr.jpg
 
Used Lutra Kveik on a Schwarzbier fermented at 92F. 6 1/2 gallons into a 7.9 gallon Speidel fermenter with a 1/2 inch blowoff attached. The blowoff tube going into a plastic ice tea pitcher half filled with water/StarSan. Sounded like a motorboat and put a significant amount of krausen into the pitcher.
 
Used Lutra Kveik on a Schwarzbier fermented at 92F. 6 1/2 gallons into a 7.9 gallon Speidel fermenter with a 1/2 inch blowoff attached. The blowoff tube going into a plastic ice tea pitcher half filled with water/StarSan. Sounded like a motorboat and put a significant amount of krausen into the pitcher.
Random bump. I was searching the forum for Lutra + Schwarzbier as I am planning one now. How did that one turn out? Any suggestions?
 
Random bump. I was searching the forum for Lutra + Schwarzbier as I am planning one now. How did that one turn out? Any suggestions?
LOL, yeah, that was a killer fermentation. I remember the beer but not too many of the details. I still have the Beersmith file from it so I just looked through it, brewed on September 8th, 2020. I wasn't as fastidious about note taking as I am now, so no real useful details unfortunately. In fact I don't even remember where I got the recipe, or if I just cobbled together on my own, but I remember it tasting quite good, after some time in the keg. I can provide the recipe if you want. Looks like I mashed at 156° which likely wasn't what I intended. Probably should have been more like 152°. Because of that the FG finished a bit higher than I wanted - 1.019/4.4% when BS estimated it would be 1.012/4.9%
 
LOL, yeah, that was a killer fermentation. I remember the beer but not too many of the details. I still have the Beersmith file from it so I just looked through it, brewed on September 8th, 2020. I wasn't as fastidious about note taking as I am now, so no real useful details unfortunately. In fact I don't even remember where I got the recipe, or if I just cobbled together on my own, but I remember it tasting quite good, after some time in the keg. I can provide the recipe if you want. Looks like I mashed at 156° which likely wasn't what I intended. Probably should have been more like 152°. Because of that the FG finished a bit higher than I wanted - 1.019/4.4% when BS estimated it would be 1.012/4.9%
Thanks!

I was thinking about mashing around 152 since I’ve read Lutra usually attenuated highly.
 
Late to the party but I'd say BE-256 dry too. Pitched one 11g pack in 5.25 gal 1.085 in 7gal fermenter and had pretty healthy blowoff. Glad it was set up to accomodate that possibility.
 
Just wondering if anyone has noticed a change in WY1007? It's been my standard Rhine River ales yeast for decades, but this spring I had a pack (within age specs.) that make a lethargic starter. When pitched I applied the blow-off, which I've usually only needed for this yeast. Slow ferment & a few inches of foam (5 gal wort in 6.5 gal carboy, temp of 70F). Crossed it off as a bad smack pack and ordered another pack from another vendor. In a nutshell, the experience with the second pouch mirrored the first. Both produced OK beers, but definitely was not the explosive experience to which I've been accustomed.
 
yeast is gonna do what it does.

you won't know 'til it happens...
 
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