Weirdest primary fermentation I've seen

[signpost]

So, I bottled up a sour recently. It was first fermented with Wyeast Belgian Ardennes and then soured with dregs from two cans of Brewery Vivant/New Belgium's Esoffier and one bottle of Jolly Pumpkin La Roja. The sample tasted great and I'm looking forward to it being carbed up.

Anyway, then I brewed a new batch to pitch on the yeast cake. After cooking the wort and getting it into the carboy, I decided to just let it go and see if any sacch was still around to do a primary ferment. Two days, nothing. So, I went ahead and pitched some T-58. It took off within 12 hours. Krausen bubbling up. All's well.

Then about 6 hours after that, the krausen is completely gone. The airlock was still going nuts, but no visual sign of fermentation. Weird.

It's like a schizophrenic fermentation. There was airlock activity for maybe close to a week.

I assume the bugs were getting to work in those first couple days. But then the krausen just disappearing when it seemed to be just getting going surprised me.

Anybody have a similar experience?

 

[sweetcell]

so the beer looks still, no activity and no bubbles coming up... but the air-lock is still bubbling? that doesn't make sense to me... at a minimum, if it's off-gassing there should be visible signs of CO2 bubbles coming up through the liquid.

post a video! then call an exorcist...

 

[signpost]

Heh. I wish I had taken some video. It was really strange.

I did use about 3 lbs. of raw Spelt in this batch. It's my first time using it, so I don't know if that has an effect on head retention that would cause this phenomenon.

 

[sweetcell]

spelt is relatively high in protein so it contributes to head retention... so that doesn't explain it.

 

[signpost]

That's what I thought.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Lacto does something to kill the head in a beer. From memory, it creates an enzyme that destroys the protein responsible for head formation, but not totally certain on the specifics of that without looking it up and I don't have time at the moment.

Because you pitched straight onto the cake, my guess is that your Lacto culture is pretty large and this is what happened, much quicker than normal.

I have some Lacto beers here and they pour up like Coca Cola. Really carbonated and when poured they create a head but it disappears in a couple of seconds, just like when you pour a coke.

I've had similar results to what you describe when using mixed cultures with wine yeast in them as well.

Spelt will not cause that. I've used it a bunch of times. Think of it as wheat, sorta.

Anyway, nothing to really be concerned about. My guess is that your final beer with have absolutely no head retention. But who cares? It's a sour. That's not unusual for a sour.

 

[signpost]

Ah, ok. That is interesting.

I would not be at all surprised if there was a huge amount of Lacto in the cake. So, if it has that effect on foam stability, that would definitely be a legit explanation for the phenomenon.

Thanks for the info. I'll probably dive down the rabbit hole of searching the internet for more info about that at some point.