Krausen but no fermentation?

[TheMerkle]

I propagated yeast from a Bell's bottle to pitch to my two hearted clone. It made a fearsome krausen and even blew it's top, but now, two weeks later, it hasn't fermented at all. Took it from ~1.060 down to 1.052. That seems weird, yea? More importantly is, is the beer saveable? Can I rack it and pitch to it again?

 

[day_trippr]

Sounds highly unlikely - unless you're using a refractometer without the necessary post fermentation math...

Cheers!

 

[TheMerkle]

Brewaide provides a post fermentation calculator that showed my Brix to be synonymous with a hydrometer reading I took after degassing and correcting for measured temperature. A taste test corroborated the fact. This thing is 1.050 at best.

 

[masskrug]

Weird. Are you sure your hydrometer is correct? What are your fermentation temps? Did they vary to any extreme?

You might just want to repitch and save the beer. Maybe those yeasties you recruited just weren't up for the job.

 

[day_trippr]

Brewaide provides a post fermentation calculator that showed my Brix to be synonymous with a hydrometer reading I took after degassing and correcting for measured temperature. A taste test corroborated the fact. This thing is 1.050 at best.

Right then. Still hard to believe, but maybe "fearsome" was a bit hyperbolic

Time to call in the artillery. I'd go with a 2 liter starter using WLP090, try to keep it in the mid-60s, and let it rip...

Cheers!

 

[BigFloyd]

I love my refractometer, but I'd want an actual hydro reading before taking any action on this given the description of the krausen.

 

[eastoak]

Brewaide provides a post fermentation calculator that showed my Brix to be synonymous with a hydrometer reading I took after degassing and correcting for measured temperature. A taste test corroborated the fact. This thing is 1.050 at best.

all of that notwithstanding why not use an actual hydrometer?

 

[TheMerkle]

Sorry if I was unclear. I took both a refeactometer reading as well as a hydrineter reading. Both readings were corrected; the refract for post fermentation and the hydro was degassed. The readings were near identical at 1.051 and 1.052.

Maybe the krausen wasnt fearsome on the scale of all krausens, but this thing was the biggest krausen I've had on amy of my beers. It clogged the airlock, blew it off, and filled the ferm chamber with thick pasty yeast goo.

Perhaps it should be mentioned that when I originally pitched this beer I put it into the wrong fridge. It was at serving 38 degrees instead of the intended fermentation 63. I corrected the temp, swirled the beer, and it krausened. Perhaps it just never got warm enough? In the past I've pitched closer to 70 degrees and stored at 63. Should I let it warm and swirl again?

 

[eastoak]

it does sound weird that a beer would blow out the airlock but only drop from 1.060 to 1.052. all of the yeast that filled the chamber had to have been the product of yeast reproducing and therefore of fermentation. i'm tempted to say it's unlikely your beer is still at 1.052 but i guess anything is possible.

 

[TheMerkle]

I swear, I'm not crazy. Is it possible that an overpitch produced a large reproduction of yeast but cool temps prevented fermentation?

At any rate, I took the beer out of the fridge to let it warm up a bit and it started bubbling away in the lock. I understand that it a normal part of increasing temp, but I swirled up the yeast cake and put it back in the fridge a bit warmer than before (65 degrees). Hopefully it will dry out.

 

[eastoak]

I swear, I'm not crazy. Is it possible that an overpitch produced a large reproduction of yeast but cool temps prevented fermentation?

i don't think so. yeast in wort will reproduce and use the sugars in the wort as part of the process, the byproduct is alcohol.

 

[TheMerkle]

That is what I thought. I am certain my readings are accurate at just over 1.050. All I can think of now is that my ORIGINAL readings were off... but I'm new to all grain brewing and a MASSIVE overshot of my expected efficiency would be every bit as unlikely as krausening beer not fermenting. I'll even post a pic tonight of the hop trub stuck to the neck of the carboy all the way up and out of the lock. Could there have been some sort of foam or other krausen-like activity other than an actual krausen?

 

[BigFloyd]

Please get a hydrometer reading on this. That's the only way to know for sure.

If your original readings were off, you are missing part of the data really needed to get a corrected reading now from a refractometer.

 

[TheMerkle]

Read up Floyd. I clarified that I took hydrometer readings AND refeactometer reading and corrected them each. I did again today because you guys convinced me that I'd lost it. This beer is 1.050.

 

[BigFloyd]

Read up Floyd. I clarified that I took hydrometer readings AND refeactometer reading and corrected them each. I did again today because you guys convinced me that I'd lost it. This beer is 1.050.

My apologies.

Are you considering re-pitching at this point?

 

[uatuba]

Here's what happened. Your original gravity may have been as expected, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Chances are, you mashed at too high of a temperature, mashed out too soon, didn't dough in properly, or all of the above. Because your enzymes were denatured too quickly, you have a high amount complex sugars in your wort, which are of no use to yeast. Since you did have some simple sugars, your fermentation took off and ended quickly because the yeast used all of the food available to it. I don't think there is anything you can do to get the gravity any lower other than adding enzymes. There was something wrong with your mashing process.

 

[eastoak]

Here's what happened. Your original gravity may have been as expected, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Chances are, you mashed at too high of a temperature, mashed out too soon, didn't dough in properly, or all of the above. Because your enzymes were denatured too quickly, you have a high amount complex sugars in your wort, which are of no use to yeast. Since you did have some simple sugars, your fermentation took off and ended quickly because the yeast used all of the food available to it. I don't think there is anything you can do to get the gravity any lower other than adding enzymes. There was something wrong with your mashing process.

the gravity dropped a tiny amount so how would you explain the blowout and all of the yeast?

 

[uatuba]

There were some fermentable sugars...just not enough.

 

[eastoak]

There were some fermentable sugars...just not enough.

enough for a blow out so i would say that either his measurements are off or we're being trolled. if your scenario was what actually happened, he has not posted any info about his process at all, i would not expect the quick, incomplete fermentation to cause a blowout. i would expect a small krausen would form then fall but no blow out or yeast visible anywhere outside of the fermentor.

 

[BigFloyd]

enough for a blow out so i would say that either his measurements are off or we're being trolled. If your scenario was what actually happened, he has not posted any info about his process at all, i would not expect the quick, incomplete fermentation to cause a blowout. I would expect a small krausen would form then fall but no blow out or yeast visible anywhere outside of the fermentor.

+1.

 

[day_trippr]

+2

And that's why this is so baffling...

Cheers!

 

[TheMerkle]

I've had problems doughing in well in the past, so while I was careful to dough inslow and stir well, there is that possibility. I mashed at 149-150 for 75 minutes.

 

[TheMerkle]

It would appear that warming the beer to near 70 degrees and swirling it has started evidence of fermentation again. I'll give it a week and remeasure.

 

[bigringking]

It would appear that warming the beer to near 70 degrees and swirling it has started evidence of fermentation again. I'll give it a week and remeasure.

I know this was over a year ago but wonder if you got any definitive answers, or at least ones you are more sure of. I just had a similar situation from the weekend. Here is a little of what happened to me:

I brewed a milk stout on Saturday (11-15-14) using a White Lab 004 Irish Ale yeast stepped up in a 1.8L starter. The recipe called for a 155 *F mash for 60 min but I missed that and was low - around *148. And that after adding half a gallon of boiling water. I didn't want to over do the water (and as an aside, I probably should have at least added another half gallon). I ended up hitting my 1.059 OG, cooled to 65-66*F, oxygenated as uaual and pitched my yeast. Temps in my basement are still at 66 and so is the beer. Now, I *usually* use a blow off tube, but just didn't this time. Probably because it was late and I needed to get ready for the next day.

I ended up being gone all day Sunday and most of Monday (went to my first ever Packers game!). When I got home Monday night, I found this mess. I have had one or two messes like this in the past so I wasn't too worried about the beer being infected. With that big of a fermentation, I'm sure there was enough gas going out to keep anything from getting in. What did worry me though is that it appears that the fermentation is really slow.

Really what I am wondering is, did I loose too much yeast in that blow out? There is a LOT of trub and goo on the outside of the better bottle. I haven't' checked the gravity yet. I wanted to see if fermentation ramped back up. I have put a couple of heavy towels around it to see if it warms just a little and helps fermentation along. I will check the gravity and post back here. If it appears that fermentation is back on track, or even mostly back on track, I'll chalk it up to lesson learned - about mash temp as well as blowoff tube. Oh, the clean airlock is bubbling about every 40 seconds now. This is up from almost not at all a bit ago so maybe its coming along ok.

Anyway, just wanted to see how things turned out for you and if you had any words for me.

Thanks,

 

[eastoak]

Really what I am wondering is, did I loose too much yeast in that blow out?

no you didn't. if your fermentation is slow it's not because of yeast lost in a blow out.