Wyeast 3944 belgian wit

[brewburke]

Pitched a wyeast smack pack into my belgian witbier at 70° F no starter. It has been fermenting for two days at 68°F. O.G. was 1.042. I haven't taken any gravity readings yet. I'm not concerned about the fermentation but there's about a 4 inch yeast cake on the bottom of my carboy. Yet the total volume of the carboy is still only 5 gallons. Am I only going to end up with like 3 1/2 gallons of beer? Why so much yeast?

 

[tagz]

It's a slow flocculator. It should compact more, especially if you can cold crash. If not, it'll just take time.

 

[brewburke]

Sounds good. Thanks for the reply. I'll crash it when it's done. I have never had a yeast fill up so much of my fermenter like that. Especially without a starter.

 

[m00ps]

two days into fermentation, I wouldnt call that the yeast cake yet. A lof of the yeast is still floating around somewhere since its active. That layer at the bottom will compact to 2 inches or so most likely after a week

 

[brewburke]

Okay good. I'm just not used to yeast behaving like that. I usually use us-04 and us-05. I have also used nottingham wyeast 3787 and wyeast 1388. None of them behaved like this. Well the 3787 might have but I couldn't see it in my conical

 

[brewburke]

Update - there's still a large amount of yeast on the bottom of my carboy. It's about a 4 inch yeast cake. Took a gravity reading and it is at 1.008 gravity sample was crystal clear. Tasted pretty watery. Yeast didn't compact at all I have like for inches of sediment on the bottom of my carboy. Anyone else experience this?

 

[flars]

You pitched your yeast on 6/6? Give the yeast/trub layer more time to compact. You are also seeing break material, not just yeast, dropping out. You should see a significant difference in two more weeks.