Beer Forum

I brewed an all extract bavarian hefe on Monday afternoon. Had made a starter (about 1700ml) using WLP300. Had it in the flask for a bit more than 24 hrs, then I put it in the fridge for a couple nights as I wasn't going to get to brew on Sat or Sun as I had hoped. Took it out a few hours ahead of pitching, decanted, and let it sit at room temp.

did my first full boil outside, new pot, chiller, etc. Briess wheat DME and Muntons wheat LME. Everything in the boil went smoothly. All the LME was late addition. Chilled, whirlpooled, siphoned to the fermenting bucket. Had the wort pouring against the side of the bucket so as to spread wide and thin and get as much surface area open to the air as possible. Got it into the mid/low 60s, pitched the starter, shook it up, and set it in a larger bucket with a water bath to help keep the temp in the low-mid 60s. On the Jamil Show on this style, Jamil stressed a big improvement in the clove and banana by fermenting at 62°. Mine is around 63 and has been since Monday night.

I set the bucket up with a blow-off tube into a large plastic jug containing a sanitizer solution. By Tues morning I heard it bubbling slowly (once every 12 secs or so). when I got home from work Tu evening, it was more like every 5 seconds, holding at 63°. Great!

Wed night I get home from work and it's slowed back to the once every 10-12 seconds, and TH morning it was 15 sec between burps.

From all I've read, Hefe's tend to give a pretty intense ferment, no? I was expecting a lot more activity, even if only for 2-3 days.

I have not opened the bucket to take a gravity reading yet (OG was 1.052). Is that the next step? I'm concerned something ain't right, that perhaps my starter wasn't all that great (being the first starter I've made, I really don't know, but it appeared that I have increased my yeast amount when I chilled it and saw what had accumulated at the bottom). Picking up another vile of WLP300 isn't going to be easy during the weekdays given where I'd have to go to find it.

This is a top cropping strain and the yeast will rise to the surface of your wort and hang out. This means the majority of yeast is not working on the sugars below as they should be. If you can give the fermenter a gentle swirl and this should knock the yeast back into suspension in the wort to continue eating. Be prepared for more fermentation and blow off activity after swirling. you may need to do this several times throughout the course of fermentation to get it to finish out properly. Be patient and good luck!

brewinhard wrote:This is a top cropping strain and the yeast will rise to the surface of your wort and hang out. This means the majority of yeast is not working on the sugars below as they should be. If you can give the fermenter a gentle swirl and this should knock the yeast back into suspension in the wort to continue eating. Be prepared for more fermentation and blow off activity after swirling. you may need to do this several times throughout the course of fermentation to get it to finish out properly. Be patient and good luck!

Ah ha! Good to know. Thanks for the info. Have only brewed with Safale 05 dry yeast thus far, so this one is completely new to me. I will give it a swirl tonight when I get home and see what effect it has

day 7: just took a gravity reading... only down to 1.020. Smells AWESOME. Just that banana and clove I was hoping for, but not done by any means. So I covered it back up and gave it a good swirl. Had been a few days since the last swirl. I just hope the yeast will kick into gear again enough to finish it up. I suppose I could pick up another vial of WLP300, but I'd rather not if I don't have to (the LHBS is distance and hard for me to get to during the week). I do have some fermentis WB06 (or whatever their wheat beer dry yeast is) which I could toss in I supposed, but I guess I will wait to see if it does any more work now that I've swirled it up again. The krausen was high and bubbly when I just opened the top to take the reading.

you can warm it up some at this point, the majority of your fermentation is done. i'm not sure how fermentable the dme but it should drop about 8 more points. let it warm up a few degrees and get it to finish. and RDWHAHB!!! it's gonna turn out fine.

Steelers&Beer wrote:you can warm it up some at this point, the majority of your fermentation is done. i'm not sure how fermentable the dme but it should drop about 8 more points. let it warm up a few degrees and get it to finish. and RDWHAHB!!! it's gonna turn out fine.

Actually, we had a warm weekend, and the ambient temp in the room it's in moved up a bit, so the bucket adhesive thermometer is now reading around 66 vs the 63 it had been at most of the week. I gave it a swirl last night, and am getting more activity in the airlock again (bubble every 10-12 seconds).


brewinhard mentioned this being a top crop yeast? So the yeast hangs at the top? Once it's done, will it fall to the bottom like other yeasts? Should I swirl it up again before siphoning to the bottling bucket, or just let it be?

Hopefully the next gravity reading will show improvement and I can get this down to the 1.013 range (which is the number I'm getting in BeerAlchemy, which would put me at 5.2% ABV. I did manage to hit the number on the OG (1.052). Certainly seems like this batch is proving to be all about the yeast.

I've got a hefe that is almost done in the fermenter. I had the same thing happening that you are seeing: yeast just sitting there not doing much after a quick initial fermentation. I was curious if the yeast would drop, as well. One day this weekend, after two weeks, my beer suddenly had no more yeast on top. Overnight, it all dropped. Hopefully this will be your experience, too.

Cody wrote:I've got a hefe that is almost done in the fermenter. I had the same thing happening that you are seeing: yeast just sitting there not doing much after a quick initial fermentation. I was curious if the yeast would drop, as well. One day this weekend, after two weeks, my beer suddenly had no more yeast on top. Overnight, it all dropped. Hopefully this will be your experience, too.

Thanks Cody... good to hear a similar experience. So many folks seem to have an explosive fermentation with the WLP300 that I was pretty nervous when that didn't happen with mine. Hopefully another week with the occasional swirl will help this finish out and get my FG down to where it's supposed to be.