Reasons for and affects of a "mellow" fermentation

[spaullba]

Hello everyone,

I am still very new to homebrewing. I put my third batch in the primary on Friday. It is a hefeweizen, wit beer fusion sort of brew as follows:
7 lbs wheat malt extrat
.5 lbs flaked oats
.5 lbs flaked wheat
.5 oz Centennial (bittering)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace 20 min
1 oz Sorachi Ace 5 min
.4 oz Coriander 5 min
1.5 oz bitter orange peel
WLP 300
~5.2 gallon batch

I have gotten no activity/bubbles from the blow off tube. After about 36 hours of no blow off tube activity I did some research and found that no bubbles means nothing (bubbles>krausen>gravity check>repitch). Thus I cracked open the lid to the primary and saw a decent amount of krausen (maybe 3 inches) and assumed fermentation begun fine. My curiosity/worrying has gotten the best of me though and I have cracked open the lid an additional two times to be sure that krausen is still there as no bubbles have been seen as of today, 5 days after pitching. I know that things are probably fine with my beer, but I am curious why some brews ferment super heavy and others do not, even of the same style and yeast. Also, what if any affects can this have on the brew? Thanks!

PS. I did not use a starter and pitched at about 70 degrees.

 

[spaullba]

Whoops. Effects* not affects .

 

[brewkinger]

First of all..

RDWHAHB.

You are making beer.
Krausen is good!
It is fermenting.

To address a specific inquiry in your post:
Yeast types, temperatures, wort composition all play a role to some degrees in how active the fermentation is.

 

[spaullba]

First of all..

RDWHAHB.

You are making beer.
Krausen is good!
It is fermenting.

To address a specific inquiry in your post:
Yeast types, temperatures, wort composition all play a role to some degrees in how active the fermentation is.

I know I'm worrying a bit, but I am also curious. Would not using a starter slow the fermentation down this much? Would a leak in the lid slow fermentation or just stop bubbles? Does a slow fermentation effect the product?

 

[1fishkeeper]

I'm willing to put money on a bad seal with the lid. It should be fine just try and get a good seal on it.

 

[kh54s10]

I know I'm worrying a bit, but I am also curious. Would not using a starter slow the fermentation down this much? Would a leak in the lid slow fermentation or just stop bubbles? Does a slow fermentation effect the product?

I would say you are worrying for nothing!

You said you had 3 inches of krausen - that is a good amount. And really how much does not make any difference. Slow fermentation is determined by 2 things, neither which you have mentioned. 1) Many days before fermentation starts or 2) a long time to get to final gravity, which you have not gotten to yet.
Forget about bubbles. It appears that you have a serious air leak. This is of no real concern.
Again there is no evidence of slow fermentation here.

Close up the fermenter for another couple of weeks then take a gravity reading. Close it back up and wait 2 more days then take another gravity reading. If they are the same you can secondary, dry hop or bottle as per your recipe/requirements.

Welcome to brewing, now relax and let the wort become beer.

Added: as to starters - your beer should be ok. Making a starter is better and will make your good beers better. In this case it is too late and you did not have a serious lag time due to underpitching so I would not worry much.

 

[brewkinger]

I know I'm worrying a bit, but I am also curious. Would not using a starter slow the fermentation down this much? Would a leak in the lid slow fermentation or just stop bubbles? Does a slow fermentation effect the product?

1) not really, the purpose of a starter is not speed of fermentation; it is more of an immobilization and preparation with growth of yeast to appropriate quantity.

2) a leak in your lid is just an additional way for CO2 to escape. Wanna see something cool? Search open fermentation (no lid at all)
Search the sticky or wiki titled "airlock activity is not a sign of fermentation.

3) in your case, it is fermenting and therefore the concerns with speed of ferment do not really apply. Refer back to and study up on starters and fermentation temp controls (swamp coolers) if you want to better understand the effects of yeast and fermentation on the "product"

 

[spaullba]

Alright, thanks guys. I figured everything was fine, was just curious on why the fermentation was mellow and if it meant anything in regards to how the beer will turn out.

 

[kh54s10]

Alright, thanks guys. I figured everything was fine, just curious on why the fermentation was mellow and if it meant anything in regards to how the beer will turn out.

Again, given no starter and everything else I could not say you have a "mellow" fermentation. It sounds totally normal to me.

 

[Demus]

If you have krausen, you have fermentation. If you have bubbles, you have a good seal in your system. Either your blowoff tube or fermentor lid won't hold pressure. It's not critical, but I'd try to address that next brew. For this one, +1000 on leaving it ALONE for at least 10 days. After that, check the gravity, wait at least 3 more days and recheck, if the reading is identical, you are ready to bottle/keg. Notice I said nothing about bubbles? I'd have recommended even longer but wheat beers are best young so they go against the general rule of longer is better.

Brewing is an exercise in patience. The best way to gain patience is to get a second fermentor and brew another batch before you even bottle. This gets a good pipeline going and makes it much easier to heed the often given advice of leaving it alone for another week or two. Don't plan on any brew being drinkable in less than a month, so if you brew about every two weeks, it works great!