Lack of Krausen?

[trabus]

Last night I transferred my first batch (an IPA) from my primary to my secondary (on day 7), and didn't really see anything resembling krausen on top of the batch. I used an ounce of whole hops which I failed to filter out when dumping the wort into my primary, so those were all floating on the top. I was thinking it was probably related to the whole hops being on top during the fermentation.

I used Nottingham for my yeast, which I rehydrated before pitching. I used a bucket for my primary fermentation, and it appeared to be a fairly average fermentation (from video I've seen) with a bubble every second at the peak (which came around 36-48 hours in). It slowed to almost nothing at day 6 before I racked to the secondary.

It smelled fine, tasted fine (actually quite good), and the gravity is close to where it should be, so I'm not really worried about the beer being off. I was just curious if having the whole hops may have prevented the krausen from forming.

 

[TheJadedDog]

Did you see a ring of gunk along the top? The krausen falls once fermentation is complete and should be allowed to fall before racking the beer. If you see a ring of gunk it means you had a krausen and it fell. It also means that it is ready to be transfered to secondary (if you are using one).

Sounds to me like everything is fine. The hops probably would not have prevented the krausen from forming; sometimes the krausen is just small/thin.

 

[Joker]

I vote krausen had fallen just like it should.

 

[trabus]

Durrr... It occurred to me right after I posted this that the krausen is just bubbles of CO2 that haven't escaped yet, and it only makes sense that they would have popped by day 7. I did in fact see a ring, and it was a good 2 inches from the top batch. I guess it was that there wasn't really any trace of foam that alarmed me, I was expecting to open it up and see a big foamy mess at the top.

Ah, the joy of being a n00b. Thanks for the quick answers!

 

[Joker]

Remember to let the krausen fall before transferring. Or you could not use a secondary at all like some prefer.