WLP400 Belgian Wit Yeast Question

[Yjie91]

Hey everyone, need your comments on this please.

So I brewed a Belgian Wit with a Coopers Hefe/Wheat LME, 1kg of Munton's Wheat DME, Saaz hops, Coriander seeds and Curacua peel.

I pitched 1 vial of WLP400 Belgian Wit directly into 19L of wort at 18deg.C on Saturday, 6:30pm. The yeast died, and I pitched another vial of WLP400 Belgian Wit at 21 deg.C on Sunday, 19 hours later. The fermentation took off, and a thin, white foamy kraeusen was on top of the wort. 6 hours later, the thin, white foamy kraeusen turned into a 1 - 1.5 inch thick, doughy kraeusen, which is still persisting as of this Monday morning.

The fermentation of the beer is maintained at a temperature of 20 - 22deg.C, averaging at 21deg.C.

From my understanding, the yeast is supposed to create a huge kraeusen that sometimes causes blow-offs, but so far, in my experience, it's just a quick transition from nothing to thin, white foam, to a 1 - 1.5 inch thick, doughy kraeusen.

I would like to hear your comments on this phenomenon so I may understand this yeast better for future brewing purposes as I quite like wit beers.

I sincerely hope to be able to read your thoughts and comments soon.

Thank you!

 

[bkboiler]

How do you know the first yeast died? May have just been a long lag time...I’ve had lag times approaching and even sometimes exceeding 24 hrs...also, belgian wit ale strains often like warmer temperatures to finish, so your first pitch may have been working slowly... then your second addition caused faster activity due to the larger total colony (can cause yeast stress and overactivity, which is actually a good thing to over/underpitch a belgian, gives more yeast phenolics).

 

[Yjie91]

How do you know the first yeast died? May have just been a long lag time...I’ve had lag times approaching and even sometimes exceeding 24 hrs...also, belgian wit ale strains often like warmer temperatures to finish, so your first pitch may have been working slowly... then your second addition caused faster activity due to the larger total colony (can cause yeast stress and overactivity, which is actually a good thing to over/underpitch a belgian, gives more yeast phenolics).

The reason why I know the yeast was mostly dead in the first pitch was because I partially froze that vial of yeast. Did some research and read that at least 50% of the yeast could have died due to cell wall rupture during freezing. I saw that most of the yeast just became lees and flocculated to the bottom of my clear fermenter.

Following after, I performed a forced ferment test with the first pitch by tapping out some of the wort immediately after pitching. As of now there are some wisps kraeusen, but nothing else in terms of activity.

The second pitch worked, but resulted in the kraeusen formation described as above, which concerns me as most other reviews of the WLP400 yeast mentions about a huge foamy kraeusen bordering on blow-off. I am not sure why mine is currently acting like this.

 

[bkboiler]

Sounds like you’ve done some good work so far. It could be many factors. I wouldnt worry about it too much at this point. With a belgian, there’s not too much you can’t fix especially since warming it up at the end will help it finish.
I’d RDWHAHB for a few more days and take a gravity reading and taste test.
Even the first underpitch may have resulted in some great Belgiany character...

 

[Yjie91]

Sounds like you’ve done some good work so far. It could be many factors. I wouldnt worry about it too much at this point. With a belgian, there’s not too much you can’t fix especially since warming it up at the end will help it finish.
I’d RDWHAHB for a few more days and take a gravity reading and taste test.
Even the first underpitch may have resulted in some great Belgiany character...

Yup, I definitely will be doing the warming procedure as fermentation reaches completion. I've read issues of it stall/refusing to finish, and I think a bump in temperature will help with that.

It's just that I am curious (and concerned) about the huge difference in fermentation pattern of my WLP400 and other's WLP400, and I hope to get an understanding of why it is happening as such, and correct it in future brews.

 

[Yjie91]

Guys? I really would appreciate it if you could comment on this issue. I really would like to know what's going on with this yeast!

Please...

 

[dmtaylor]

You're worrying over nothing. It's yeast. It does what it wants, when it wants. It doesn't always do what we expect. Relax. Don't worry.

EDIT: This is also an unnecessary double-post. Is also under the Yeast forum here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/wlp400-belgian-wit-yeast-question.655454/

Seriously.... Don't worry! Everything you describe sounds totally normal.