They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s my latest batch, a rye IPA fermenting in Craft A Brew’s Catalyst. (From Google Drive, so not visible here - have to click on the link) https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPigBWKYUFA6Ne8W6zhjl3DhmeI19sdS6Nctzq-
When I first checked on it this AM, those bubbles in the center were one large white bubble that popped when I inserted my sanitized baster to draw the sample. That freaked me out - but I typically used white plastic buckets and I never looked at the beer in the bottling bucket, so I don’t know if this is something I would have seen had I looked. Tested 2X in 3 days & fermentation seems complete, steady at 1.090. Temperature of beer is 72.5º, which seems to be a couple degrees warmer than the room, generally - sampling around with a digital laser thermometer. (For the curious, this is in the basement where it is largely dark save for laundry, etc.)
The taste test: is fairly bitter but tastes like beer. It’s been a half-hour and the bitterness from a few sips still lingers. Can’t detect any off odors. This doesn’t look as awful as the infection pix I see online. So I can’t tell if this is an infection issue or just a solid bitterness. So: bottle, or pitch? Thoughts?
PS: Being the first time I ever actually watched fermentation during the process, everything has looked normal to this point. Seven days initial fermentation, 9 days of dry hops (mesh bag), 9 more days maturation. Star San sanitation throughout.
The URL for the photo didn’t work- perhaps it was truncated. In any case, I have a couple of guesses based on experiences I have had.
You may have a “pancake”, which is a thin layer of gooey and sticky krausen that holds itself together because it is anchored to the sides of the fermenter. This happens with some yeasts. You can punch a hole in it when you take a sample, but it fills in again later. If you agitate the vessel so the pancake breaks up and separates from the sides it will sink. If you do a cold crash it will all sink regardless of agitation.
The bitter taste you are getting may be from yeast still in suspension. I get this a lot from tasting gravity samples of “green” beer. Once you give the yeast time to drop out (and cold crashing helps a lot) this harshness may go away. If you don’t have any really nasty off-flavors then it will probably be just fine in the end.
Thanks, Richard. I usually go overboard on sanitation. Your “pancake” explanation seems to make sense; I did punch a hole in it when I took a gravity sample, and it has filled back in. No fancy yeast, tho - just good ol’ Safale US-05 dry ale yeast, rehydrated. I’ve also learned that a few weeks of bottle conditioning works wonders. I think I’m going to bottle. Fwiw, here’s another try at the photo link: https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPigBWKYUFA6Ne8W6zhjl3DhmeI19sdS6Nctzq-
and, using the Insert Image icon above:
Thanks all for the input. Tasted early, after 9 days in the bottle. Promising but still a little green. My limited experience has been that a few weeks in the bottle does magical things, so I’m cautiously hopeful on this one.