Pressure Fermentation Question

[Frogger42]

Hi all,

In the midst of my first run at pressure fermenting in my chilled fermentasaurus. I made a cream ale and pitched wlp001 last Sunday. I set my sounding valve to 1 bar and it’s been holding. I’ve got the chiller at 68 and come temp has been holding in that range.

About a week in, the krausen is still very pronounced. Is this normal? I guess time will tell but curious what my expectations should be. OG was close to 1.055.

Thoughts?

 

[lagermeister1]

tap it and get a gravity check. the 3 batches i have done under pressure go a couple days then the yeast starts to settle in the bottle and no more krausen. i bet its the ingredients and proteins or the yeast still in suspension leaving a frothy head on your beer.

 

[Frogger42]

Thanks lagermeister. I just got a tilt so I’m thinking about purging, dropping it in and repressurizing to start data logging. Also the trub catcher is more like a wort catcher, so I’m going to dump that beer into the bigger batch and wait for it to settle and maybe finally clear out. I’ve been listening to some podcasts and think I definitely may have over aerated. Oh well. Live and learn and brew on.

 

[Frogger42]

Interesting followup, the beer seems to finally be clearing, at this point Im wondering if fermentation was slowed down by the pressure, and maybe I should've fermented at a higher temp to compensate.

 

[Smellyglove]

Interesting followup, the beer seems to finally be clearing, at this point Im wondering if fermentation was slowed down by the pressure, and maybe I should've fermented at a higher temp to compensate.

Fermentation is indeed slowed down by higher pressure. And one can also ferment higher and still keeping the esters somewhat in check due to the pressure.