SleepySamSlim
Grandmaster Brewer
So I mainly am brewing typical middle of the road ales (O.G.s 1.45 - 1.058) - I use a bucket for primary - dry yeast - run my fermentations 68-72deg. They usually finish in 4 - 7 days (hit F.G.) and then go to secondary for 7 days at 64-68deg.
And I do keep a rough watch on airlock bubble activity - this red ale had an OG of 1.053 and a target FG 1.011 - 1.016. Yeast was one pack of Fermentis S-05. So today was day 5 and the bubbles tapered down nicely thru the week - the brew was at 67-68deg today and basically no activity (I know this is only a rough indicator but I do watch it). So I prepped for a SG sample - and from the side of the sealed bucket I could see the typical krausen line of about 1 inch. And when I crack the bucket at this point in the process the krausen has usually pretty much totally dissipated just leaving the line on the bucket side, but today there was a rich and creamy layer of krausen covering the top layer - hmmmm. I took my sample --- the FG is right on at 1.014 and the "beer" tastes ok. Normally I would have racked - the creamy krausen thru me for a loop.
So I sealed things back up and placed the primary in our garage which is sitting at 58deg ---- feeling like I wanted to stop / really slow down fermentation. I plan to keep it there for 24hrs and take a peek .....
I'm sure this has been seen before or is common - but I've not seen it in 18 batches. Comments from the peanut gallery welcome ;D and lets not get into the whole secondary whats and whys :-X .... its too early in the new year for that
And I do keep a rough watch on airlock bubble activity - this red ale had an OG of 1.053 and a target FG 1.011 - 1.016. Yeast was one pack of Fermentis S-05. So today was day 5 and the bubbles tapered down nicely thru the week - the brew was at 67-68deg today and basically no activity (I know this is only a rough indicator but I do watch it). So I prepped for a SG sample - and from the side of the sealed bucket I could see the typical krausen line of about 1 inch. And when I crack the bucket at this point in the process the krausen has usually pretty much totally dissipated just leaving the line on the bucket side, but today there was a rich and creamy layer of krausen covering the top layer - hmmmm. I took my sample --- the FG is right on at 1.014 and the "beer" tastes ok. Normally I would have racked - the creamy krausen thru me for a loop.
So I sealed things back up and placed the primary in our garage which is sitting at 58deg ---- feeling like I wanted to stop / really slow down fermentation. I plan to keep it there for 24hrs and take a peek .....
I'm sure this has been seen before or is common - but I've not seen it in 18 batches. Comments from the peanut gallery welcome ;D and lets not get into the whole secondary whats and whys :-X .... its too early in the new year for that