Pages: 1
Can a beer ferment to fast?
My favorite yeast is WLP005, this is a great English ale yeast, used for everything from my ESB's to the African Amber, it always gives the perfect amount of fruityness, and does not dry out your beer, usually finishing anywhere from 1.020-1.010.
I recently made a very good ESB for a summer cookout, using this yeast, but it doesn't have the fruitiness that I love. The yeast was not old, and fermented very quickly, 3 days. This is very very fast for this yeast, as it usually takes 5-7 days to ferment out. I fermented at 65f as usual, and did nothing out of the ordinary.
Since i've been using my stirplate for all liquid yeasts, i've noticed significant improvment in fermentation, sometimes cutting the fermentation time in half, but i've done this before, and had that great fruity flavor.
Right now i'm chocking this up to sub par yeast, or maybe the yeast was to active. I'm going to throw out the salvaged yeast, but i'm looking for an explination on this. Can anyone tell me what's going on here
maybe you got a really aggressive strain of the same yeast and it moved so fast that it didn't have the time to produce the esters that you normally like. Don't really know though.
ID
I wonder if you really fermented at 65F. Its been really hot lately here in the northeast. Are you sure your fermentation practices and temp controller were working as you expect.
+1 on the possibility of higher fermentation temps.
Also, are you over pitching? What's the OG and how big was your starter?
There was a rather heated debate on another forum a little while back (maybe HBT or Northern Brewer?) that discussed why pitching on yeast cakes was a bad idea. The idea is that because the cell count is already so high there isn't a need for the yeast to continue to propagate thus reducing the esters and flavors developed during that phase. Not sure if that's your problem but at least something think about.
others have mentioned ferm temp, but could mash temp affect that too? you might want to check how accurate your thermometer is. Some of them can get way off.
As i said, I use this yeast, alot, it was in the basement as usual at 65f. also this beer was made may 10th, not that hot at all outside yet. I've fermented this beer, or moved it to warmer temps up to 76 degrees before, but I always had the frutiness to it.
I used a gallon starter at 1.040, and my OG was 1.080 this came out 10 points higher than expected actually, and perhaps made this yeast work harder than it should have, but if that was the case I should have more esters not less? fermented down to 1.020
Mash temp would not have made a difference, strictly the fermentation here, but I use 2 thermometers for mashing, and mashed in at 157f.
bad batch of yeast, or some mix up with the labeling of the yeast. Seems unlikely, but still possible.
I think it is your taste.
You have bad taste.
Like your taste in baseball.
yankkes suck!
You have bad taste. 
Burn!
Thirsty has a point here. It is possible that the yeast decided you were simply not down home enough, being a yankees fan, and just decided to get temperamental and let you down... Just sayin.
I wouldn't worry about it since this was the first time it happened. I'd do everything the same and if it happens again then you need to look at things you might do different.
I agree mash temp probably wasn't issue.
I don't use starters but maybe you did overpitch and though you've used starters before maybe this batch had a lot more yeast to start the fermentation and the yeast never got to the stage to produce th esters because it ran out of food. don't know. but only doing things the same will tell of there needs to be a change.
DC
Was this the first generation on the WLP005 or had you used it before?
This is a first gen yeast, but I used 2 different tubes. That is why it's kinda weird. 2 tubes cant be off. I'm thinking it must have somthing to do with the high og on this beer, this yeast is not supposed to ferment beers this high, I'll use it again acutally, and see how it comes out.
Yanks rock
Got invited to a cookout today, and didn't have any beer except for the ESB that I bottled. As I mentioned before, I was having alot of problems with the finished product. Not only did it not have those nice fruity esters, but the beer was acting funny. Alot of chill haze, and could not keep a head. I've had chill haze before, but not this bad, It was nice and clear, and a beautiful copper when warm, when cold you couldn't even see through it, and it looked like mud, very very strange. i've never had problem keeping a nice foam head on my beer, but this one just wouldn't keep, stay on for 2 min, then just dissapear, no lacing at all.
Needless to say I just left it alone, and havn't had one for about a month. Grabbed a six pack for the cook out, and it's really matureing nicely. Got a great head on it now, and even some fruitiness is comming through, chill haze is gone. Very strange, but i'm sure the boosted OG screwed this one up a bit, but it's comming through fine.
Pages: 1
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|