Krausen - Differ much?

[PaulStat]

Hi folks,

I'm curious first time I brewed with Dried Nottingham yeast, and the Krausen was a good 2-3 inches, this time I quite clearly have fermentation as the air lock is bubbling quite happily. But the krausen is probably about 1cm thick at most? Sound ok?

Cheers,
Paul

[agentgonzo]

How long's it been in the FV? It normally takes between a day and two to get a thick krausen. It will then die down on about day 3-5 once fermentation calms down towards the end.

It could be that yeast isn't as viable this time, or you didn't oxygenate it as well as the last time. Many things can happen.

As long as it's fermenting it'll be fine.

[prolix]

Oh yes they differ greatly, from yeast to yeast and beer to beer, some are monsters that climb out of the fermenter and engulf all they can (blow off tubes are useful for these, ringwood yeast is a good example of this) others have barely a head at all

[PaulStat]

How long's it been in the FV? It normally takes between a day and two to get a thick krausen. It will then die down on about day 3-5 once fermentation calms down towards the end.

It could be that yeast isn't as viable this time, or you didn't oxygenate it as well as the last time. Many things can happen.

As long as it's fermenting it'll be fine.

It'll be at 72 hours since I pitched it this evening, must admit I'm not 100% sure I used mrmalty correctly as I only used 1 pack of Wyeast (production date of 30/06/08), hmmmmm. I'll learn all of this eventually

[yashicamat]

My latest beer, my first AG, was using Wyeast. Previously my Wyeast brews (I split a pack ages ago and reuse the yeast) have been very energetic, however this time around the krausen layer was as you said, barely 1cm thick. It was also very noticeable that there wasn't an abundance of green patches of hop resins / proteins etc. on the krausen either, almost as if it was pure yeast on the top. Despite this, shining a torch into the side of the carboy revealed a maelstrom of activity and the beer fermented from 1041 to 1009 in 6 days and tastes fantastic already!

[Gurgeh]

I used some wolf brewery yeast recently that created the most beautiful meringues.

[Stonechat]

This is the krausen of Wolf Brewery yeast on a 1042OG beer on the 3rd day. It was 2nd generation, used two lots of 145g harvested from this on my two Ridley beers.

Not a good comparison with dried yeast, but shows how thick and creamy a real top fermenter can get. Very easy to harvest with a sterilised slotted spoon.