Very little krausen...

[aekdbbop]

So, my cream ale i made on saturday started fermenting after 8 hours or so, and really bubbling like a madman.. but there was never much krausen.. now there are bubbles every 10 seconds or so, but still, the most krausen i got was about 1/4 of an inch..

Im not worried, just wanna know what was different this time..

 

[denimglen]

Sorry can't help but a few brews ago I had this about 3 times in a row. The beers turned out pretty good. The last batch I brewed had a krausen as normal.

I'd be interested to know what happened. Didn't (knowingly) change anything in my process except for different recipes (but with yeasts I've used before with no problems)

 

[Danek]

I've no idea what causes the difference in krausen, but I've done three batches with S-04. Two had big ugly piles of krausen on the surface of the beer during fermenation, and one had nothing at all - so much so that I thought the yeast was dead.

Weird thing is, all batches turned out fine.

 

[Beerrific]

If I am not mistaken, it is the protein content of the beer that determines the krausen 'thickness' (and foam retention later). I assume since it was a cream ale there were adjuncts, maybe this took some of the protein out of the mix? Did you do a protein rest?

 

[denimglen]

I'm not the OP but thought I'd just add my two cents...

The few beers I brewed that did this had similar grain bills to other batches, no adjuncts, and the head rentention was crap - but it is in all my beers.