# Weird shit yeast does



## TimT (26/9/14)

No urgent reason for posting this, but Pratty's post here has made me think of some of the weird shit I've seen yeast do in my brews.

A brew I did last summer of a plum mead was one extreme. The yeast built up a a mega krausen - like, about 5-10 centimetres thick - and then, not content with that, proceeded to fart out grey sludge into the airlock and across the room. (Perhaps this is not so much a case of 'weird shit yeast does' as 'weird yeast does shit'. But anyway....) You could sit there and look at it doing this. Better than television. This was about four hours after I pitched the yeast, too, it was super-active.

The prettiest example I've seen was much slower. It took a period of days for the yeast to really get going, and it did this in an odd way. First I saw a few stray bubbles on the surface. Then they gradually formed a thin ring on the surface of the brew. Then the ring thickened, so it was a kind of donut shape. Finally, the donut vanished and was just replaced by an all-over-the-surface krausen. Only after that did the fermentation really kick in. (I now wonder if this donut shape was something to do with convection currents and heat in the brew itself. That or maybe the yeast just liked holding hands and playing ring-a-ring-a-rosies).

So. What's some weird shit _your_ yeast has done?


----------



## manticle (26/9/14)

Hung out my washing for me.

That in itself wasn't so weird except I came home to find the yeast wearing my underwear and slippers and smoking my pipe.


----------



## TimT (26/9/14)

Er, I suppose me asking 'what was the final gravity' would be a kind of moot point....?


----------



## mxd (26/9/14)

manticle said:


> Hung out my washing for me.
> 
> That in itself wasn't so weird except I came home to find the yeast wearing my underwear and slippers and smoking my pipe.


I think u spent too much time on the pipe and ya jocks normally look like the crusty and dirty


----------



## GrumpyPaul (26/9/14)

manticle said:


> Hung out my washing for me.
> 
> That in itself wasn't so weird except I came home to find the yeast wearing my underwear and slippers and smoking my pipe.


mmmm...and it is a gentleman of this state of mind that moderates the forum?????

(yeah - 5 question marks, so what of it?)


----------



## menoetes (26/9/14)

I'm fairly sure that my recultured Coopers Commercial Yeast has tried to climb out of my fermenter to attack me a few times screaming 'feed me... feeeeed meee!!'.

That yeast is such a monster, it regularly chews through OG 1.050 brews in 3 - 4 days - that's some aggressively hungry beasties.


----------



## TimT (1/10/14)

I went to check this morning on my Brett in the shed. No no I haven't got a slave called Brett who I keep tied up out back, my brettanomyces starters - I'm in the process of cultivating and hopefully getting a sizeable yeast cake for use in some brews from some wild brett that I got from some of our front-garden apples.

Anyway. Brett does this thing where unlike the normal sludgy brown yeast cloud, it'll form a distinctive pellicle - basically a lot of whitey bubbles of various sizes hanging around the surface and not dissipating for days, weeks, even months.

I found one of my starters, instead of forming this pellicle of multiple bubbles, instead decided to go for one mega-bubble that's taking up the whole carton.

Doesn't mean anything I don't think. Trying to play riddle-me-this, riddle-me-that with what you see yeast doing in a brew is a little like trying to tell the future from the tea leaves, I reckon.


----------



## panzerd18 (1/10/14)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgfubawsrcM


----------



## Curly79 (1/10/14)

Only an American could make that sound so dramatic! Love the facial expression at the end


Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Home Brewer


----------



## verysupple (1/10/14)

menoetes said:


> That yeast is such a monster, it regularly chews through OG 1.050 brews in 3 - 4 days - that's some aggressively hungry beasties.


That doesn't sound any more aggressive than any other ale yeast I've used. Surely I'm not the only one who regularly hits FG from an OG in the region of 1.050 in 3 - 4 days. If it took longer than that at a reasonable temperature I'd be starting to think my yeast wasn't in good shape and that I'd mis-handled it somehow.

That said, by all accounts the Coopers yeast does attenuate rather well.


----------



## menoetes (2/10/14)

panzerd18 said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgfubawsrcM


It was after that bottle of Sailor Jerry's Rum!





> *Curly79*
> 
> Only an American could make that sound so dramatic! Love the facial expression at the end


It looked like something similar was happening in his pants...


----------

