krausen thickness

[hunmojo]

Hello.

I was just wondering.... after a few batches of beers that I have made, I have yet to see any krausen on top of my beer during fermentation.
I do get a thing ring of krausen left, but I have seen all of these pictures on here where people have these thick krausen.. and even needing blow off tubes...

I use plastic buckets by the way. and I use dry yeast. about 10g of dry yeast for a 13L batch ratio.

i know people have said dont panic, Im not... its just weird that hardly anything appears... is this an indication im doing something wrong.. or could do something better...

thanks guys,

 

[bottlebomber]

It can depend on a lot of things. Make an American wheat using Wyeast 1010 and I guarantee you'll see the krausen you've been missing

I'm not a big fan of heavy krausen personally, it sucks having to scrub it off of the bucket lids.

 

[OldWorld]

I made a great beer using Wyeast 1010...in fact that was my first true Krausen...Oddly enough that beer was intended to be an experiment with herbs and spices...sadly I have never been able to obtain the same herbs and spices again.

The beer turned out great even though it fermented into 80's...

1010 sure is a butt kicker.

Open the top of your fermenter....take a big fat whiff...Do you get a tingle or light headed buzz...If so you got co2 and things are rocking. Kreuzen or no kreuzen. Do you have a lot of headspace?

Sometimes foam can drop overnight yet sitll be actively fermenting. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It's better to have no blow off and mess to clean.

 

[hunmojo]

its a bucket for 20 L and i only ferment about 12L so plenty of head room. I cant get liquid yeast here in hungary so im stuck with dry for everything.... saf ale s04 s05 and Nottingham are what iv been using..

should I use a starter... since im using such smal volumes. I figured my dry pitching rate is more than enough as is. straight from the package.

 

[lowtones84]

You shouldn't make a starter for dry yeast, at your batch sizes it's more than enough yeast. If you have a ring when you open up the bucket it's logical to assume that you had some krausen, right? I think it's pretty hard to see it through the side of a plastic bucket, personally.

 

[cherrob123]

I made a great beer using Wyeast 1010...in fact that was my first true Krausen...Oddly enough that beer was intended to be an experiment with herbs and spices...sadly I have never been able to obtain the same herbs and spices again.

The beer turned out great even though it fermented into 80's...

1010 sure is a butt kicker.

Open the top of your fermenter....take a big fat whiff...Do you get a tingle or light headed buzz...If so you got co2 and things are rocking. Kreuzen or no kreuzen. Do you have a lot of headspace?

Sometimes foam can drop overnight yet sitll be actively fermenting. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It's better to have no blow off and mess to clean.

Oldworld.....try Wildweeds dot com. They have everything you need to brew with herbs instead of hops. I bottled my first batch of gruit yesterday. I got mugwort, sweet gale, marsh rosemary, and dried yarrow.

I tasted the sample I used for my FG reading and while it was a bit on the sweet side, it wasn't sweeter than I expected. Anyway, steer clear of the rest of the so called wild herb places and stick with wild weeds.

Good luck.

 

[lowtones84]

Oldworld.....try Wildweeds dot com. They have everything you need to brew with herbs instead of hops. I bottled my first batch of gruit yesterday. I got mugwort, sweet gale, marsh rosemary, and dried yarrow.

I tasted the sample I used for my FG reading and while it was a bit on the sweet side, it wasn't sweeter than I expected. Anyway, steer clear of the rest of the so called wild herb places and stick with wild weeds.

Good luck.

+1 to wildweeds.com for sure. I brewed two gruits last year and both were great. In the planning stages of another now!

 

[passedpawn]

Try using Kolsch yeast.

 

[homebrewdad]

If you are brewing in a bucket, you may just be missing the krausen. Also, different yeasts, different recipes - even different batches - can act differently. If you are making tasty beer, don't worry about it. You don't worry about how much residue your spaghetti sauce leaves in the saucepan, don't worry about how much krausen you get in fermentation (as long as everything is okay).

 

[hunmojo]

cool thanks, im prety limited on yeast here, i can get us s05 and 04, Nottingham, and some other dry yeasts from fermentis.... thats about it. no specialty yeasts.