Persistant Yeast Head

[Andy]

With the hogs back yeast the yeast cap remains all the way through the fermentation period. It does reduce in depth but it's always there.....

I leave it as is and just be careful when draining off the beer such that the yeast head stays in the bucket Makes reusing the yeast bed as bit of a no-no though....


So in summary - what you've got there is "normal" for me.

[eskimobob]

I found the same thing with the yeast I got from HTB. I thought it was a good thing because it gave you plenty of time to skim the yeast off rather than it falling into the beer (which presumably might give a yeast bite?)

[bitter_dave]

I ususually get a persistent yeast head when brewing, but then I tend to barrel after a week rather than 10 days. I just hold it back with a paddle when it reaches tap level.

[bitter_dave]

What yeast do you use B_D?

Generally Safale 04, and Harvey's brewery yeast once. The one occaision I recall when the head didn't last long was with a Brupaks kit, but I fermented at too high a temp - head was frothy for a couple of days, then gone. I tend to barrel after 6-7 days though, and don't touch krausen at all, which may explain why it remains.

[mysterio]

Safale US-56 & White Labs California Ale yeast leaves a yeast head exactly like that after fermentation is complete. I just rack from underneath it. Perhaps its the same strain as the one you got from the brewery?

[Horden Hillbilly]

That reminded me of the yeast I used in my early AG days, I recovered the yeast from the bottled conditioned King & Barnes Festive, what a PITA it was to use as it settled on top of the brew & stopped fermenting at 1025!

I got round it by gently stirring it back in the brew, that worked for a couple of days only for it to stare back at me again & stop fermenting!

Eventually after stirring in again a few times more it had dropped to about 1012, by that time I had had enough & dropped into the King Keg.

I presume that it what Graham Wheeler classes as a Northern style yeast. ie it needed to be tended to like the Yorkshire "square stone" system.

If I recall correctly the beer turned out ok though, needless to say that I did not use it again though!

[Horden Hillbilly]

My whitelabs Burton ale yeast is doing the same as Daabs brew, no problems though, it has been fermenting for a week now, just took a hydrometer reading of 1012 & it still is fermenting very slowly, I can still see bubbles rising to the surface, another 2 days should see it out.

This is the first time I have used this yeast and it was very lively after a couple of days, last Tuesday while I was at work Mrs H sent me a text to tell me that it was foaming over the sides of the fv! I always put an old sheet under the fv just in case of any mishaps & the cap off the kits are always put under the tap just in case of any leaks.