Still Krausen after 1 week?

[sportscrazed2]

I opened up my fermenter after 1 week in primary just to test how well my new bucket wrench worked and too my suprise the brew still had krausen on top. is this normal?

 

[jdlev]

No...it's definitely poisoned...please ship it to me at 123 Smith Street for proper analysis.

I think you're ok....

 

[daveyeah]

I'm willing to bet someone in here is going to tell you it's fine, and then they'll tell you something about relaxing and having a home brew.

Just my guess though, I'm new to this stuff.

 

[frazier]

I did a batch where the kreusen fell after two days. Another, where it was going strong after two and a half weeks. You can't put yeast in a pigeonhole.

If there is kreusen, there is still work to be done by the yeast. Let the yeast do its work.

 

[pkincaid]

I'm willing to bet someone in here is going to tell you it's fine, and then they'll tell you something about relaxing and having a home brew.

Just my guess though, I'm new to this stuff.

It's fine.... RDWHAHB
Let it do its thing and check it with Hydrometer readings. I don't even bother going near my fermentors for the first 2-3 weeks, then I start taking hydro readings.

 

[Calder]

I find it depends a lot on the yeast. I have done a lot of beers with PacMan yeast and they are pretty much done in 2 to 3 days and kraeusen has fallen. I also use WLP022 (Essex) a lot, and kraeusen sticks around a long time with that one; 3 weeks is not unusual for that yeast.

 

[goodgodilovebeer]

Remember, yeasts are living things. Much like women, their behaviour is pretty much impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy. Urgh...it's too warm. Urgh...it's too cold. Just sit back, have a beer and let em do their thing.

 

[dotnetdotcom]

"Still krausen after all these years" - was that by Paul Simon?

 

[frazier]

"still krausen after all these beers" - was that by paul simon?

fify

 

[daveyeah]

I'll also testify to the randomness of yeast. My first three beers, the krausen fell relatively quickly. Fermentation seemed over and I was bottling after about a week (against common wisdom; I wasn't paying attention to the forum back then).

My current fermentation had krausen for about a week and a half, then it fell. I was letting it clarify a bit for a few days when we hit a warm spell, and fermentation kicked up again along with the krausen. I had a decent layer on the beer for about 2 days, then it started to fall, finally settling maybe yesterday morning. The gravity also fell another 2 points or so.

Patience is the most difficult part of brewing, I find.

 

[Revvy]

Krausen, like airlock bubbling is another one of those things, that is not a good way to determine where along the fermentation spectrum a given beer is. The amount of krausen can vary for whatever reason, it can come quick and depart quickly or it can linger long after fermentation is complete, and it all be normal. Different yeasts produce different amounts of krausen, and even the same yeast can react differently in a totally different batch of beer, that could be due to the recipe, or the temperature, or the phase of the moon even.

For example, I posted this awhile ago...

I had a wit beer that I pitched bottle harvested Hoegaarden yeast on Dec. 26th, that STILL had a 2" krausen on it three weeks later. I took a grav reading and it had reached terminal gravity, 1.010. So the beer was done, but the krausen still lingered. I finally gently swirled the beer to knock it down, and let it settle for another week before I bottled it. I'm not normally a fan of knocking them down, and usually let it do it naturally.

But some yeasts are low flocculating, and may have a difficult time. I figured since mine was bottle harvested, and I had pitched the starter at high krausen, maybe it was "genetically mutated" with the flocculation "gene" off or something. So I gently swirled it and let it fall.

I brewed another batch with another mason jars worth of that yeast several months later and had the same thing happen.

Beligan wits are notoriously long krausening.

So again, like the airlock it is not something that is cut and dried, it can vary from batch to batch and from yeast to yeast. Since it is a living micro organism, yeast do their own thing, and dance to their own drummers, nearly every time. So it can't be consistently relied on to tell you where your beer is at at any given moment.

Again the only reliable way to know where you beer is at is to take a gravity reading.

Or like many of us do simply relax, and trust the yeast to do their job. If you've given the yeast a good foundation, aerated and santitized properly, given the yeast the right nutrients, and pitched plenty of yeast to do the job, Then the yeast WILL do it's job, 99% of the time.

We really don't need to be all "figity wigity" and hover over everything, doing that we stress out too much, and we're tempted to try to fix something that more than likely doesn't need fixing at all.

You want to know how to ruin you beer? Mess with it.

I pitch my yeast, and come back 1 month later and bottle. And I've never had a beer not ferment for me....it really is that simple.

 

[Sublimis]

Remember, yeasts are living things. Much like women, their behaviour is pretty much impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy. Urgh...it's too warm. Urgh...it's too cold. Just sit back, have a beer and let em do their thing.

LMAO True True!