Bubbling Starter But No Krausen

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deebee

The Bludgeon Brewery
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I made up a starter on Friday night pouring a Wyeast 1084 smack pack into a litre of extract solution. 24 hours later the airlock is bubbling away happily and i can see bubbles rising to the surface of the starter and bursting, but there is no froth whatsoever. None. The surface of the starter is smooth and glassy apart from the odd bubble rising from below and popping. The gas escaping from the airlock smells like a fermenting starter.

When i give it a shake it froths up vigorously like lemonade and the airlock blows its box off, but the froth subsides straight away and I'm left with no krausen. At all.

Does anyone have any clues about what the hell is going on with my starter?
 
You must learn to be patient grasshopper
:p
 
Batz,
I am making a bunch of starters as per your instruction and all seems ok, however a couple of questions.

I have started a wyeast whitbread ale yeast off in a 5 ltre container and added 1.5 ltres of dme wort as instructed.
Let it brew for 48 hrs and made another 1.5 litres of dme wort and added and shook shit out of.
Going excellent but it is getting hot here on the eyre peninsula this arvo and I wonder will this worry the yeast.
The temp of the demijon is 24deg c
Should I be doing this at the recommended yeast brewing temp?

Do I wait till all activity has stopped before I feed the starter again bearing in mind that you said 24 to 48 hrs between feeds?
Cheers
PS I didnt mean to change the subject too much.
 
It is of course nice to keep the yeast close to fermation temperture , but we must remember that we are making yeast starters and not brewing beer , what we want is healthy active yeast cells.

Warmer temperture will allow this , we are not so worried about off flavours in the beer as we will pour much of this off and mainly the yeast cake in our brew

I step up every 24-48 when activity is strong , let it settle a bit before splitting up , activity need not be completely stopped , store of course in a very cold fridge


I have never used the yeast you are starting , I am yet to make a wheat beer , I am sure it will all go well , all the best B.B.B

I am starting a Brit Ale wyeast tonight
 
How hot was it DB. I boiled a irish stout last year. the temp hit 42 outside and I was brewing in the bathroom(the coolest room in the house)and the brew got to 32 and was over and done with in less than 48 hours. Maybe the starter is done and needs to be poured off a little and fed again???
 
Batz,
The Whitbread yeast is an ale yeast 1099
I have never tried it either. the only one I have used is a 1056.
I thought I would give it a go due to its high flocculation characteristics.
This is its description -

1099 Whitbread Ale Yeast. A mildly malty and slightly fruity fermentation profile; not as tart and dry as 1098 and much more flocculent. Clears well without filtration. Low fermentation temperatures will produce a clean finish with a very low ester profile. Flocculation - high; apparent attenuation 68-72%. (64-75 F, 18-24 C)

Has anyone else tried this yeast?
Can anyone give us a report?

Deebee,
The above is doing a similar thing.
Mine seemed to have a krausen within hours but was clear as a bell after the first 24 hours.
Time didnt allow me to feed it until the following morning but soon as I did it went mad again.
I am fairly new to these liquid yeasts so can not speak eith any experience.
Cheers
 
Guys, thanks for your responses. The smack pack was fully swollen at pitching and "active" a few hours later - i.e. the starter was effervescing and the airlock was bubbling. 36 hours later it is the same. If I shake it, i get a big krausen and the airlock goes mad but it dies straight down again and just looks like cola beer or something.

The temp was fine - mid 20s. It definitely hasn't finished fermenting. Bubbling away but no froth. None.

It's totally got me buggered. And the big question, should I pitch or ditch this expen$ive yeast????
 
I personally would taste then pitch, not ditch.

If its giving off CO2 the yeast is live and active and multiplying. And if it tsatses OK its not infected. I imagine the krausen is like head, more to do with proteins in the wort you are using, anything majorly different in the malt used? Didnt by any chance use an old cooking oil bottle for the starter? Just joking but could be a small amount of something foreign in there affecting the surface tension?
 
Guest Lurker or anyone else that may know,
what sort of taste would indicate that something like this may be off. I'm just curious in case I ever come across it.

cheers
 
If it is off Johnno you'll know , sure as hell you won't be able to swill it around in your mouth and still look normal :blink:
 
Thanks Batz,
I usually just smell and if it seems ok pitch. I better taste from now on. Especially as I am starting to use grains here and there.

cheers
 
DB,
Just to let you know...I started an Irish ale yeast friday(doing an oatmeal stout next w/end), and I'm getting the same result...had a head after 12-18 hours and now its nothing but small bubbles rising to the surface, smells fine though.
Wait till you do a scotish ale and you get a full centimetre of brown sludge on the surface of the starter

my tip is to hang on to it and wait till it clears and feed it again and pitch it after 48 hours of feeding time..guarantee it'll be going nuts within 4 hours, if not the hour.
 
Linz, I think that's the go. Was going to brew today but may have to do it one night this week.

GL, yeah now that you mention it, there was about an inch of detergent at the bottom of the starter bottle. Anything wrong with that?? ;-)

Anyway I will probably pull out plan B and try this yeast on a kit and see how it goes before trying it on a more expensive brew. Thanks for advice.
 
I hope im not too late on this one but I have experienced this exactly the same problem on my london ale yeast 1028. It is my stock english ale yeast and the only one I use and I get this problem quite frequently. My wheat yeasts and belgian ale yeasts dont have this problem that I can remember. I have found no connection between the krausen in the starter and the final result.
Hope this helps
DAB
 
so how did it go deebee?

Here we are all sitting on the edge of our fermemters
:p
 
Little bit of froth this morning Batz, but not much, kind of like a bit of spit in the dunny. And most of the activity has died down. Gonna step it up tonight and see what she does.
 
Stepped it up last night and we have more activity today, including some bubbles and scum on top, but still no krausen as such. The yeast that has flocced out is in large coagulated pieces and looks like semi-dried paint. When I have used this strain in the past the flocculated yeast looks more like silt. It doesn't smell off, but I am suss on this starter and will be testing it out on a kit with extract/dex mix.
 
the starter I used the sludge looked like little soft rocks(if its possible). A few stirs/shakes and now I've got the silt look to it. going to pour off tomorrow arvo or the next arvo and step it up to a litre.
 

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