Never used this yeast before (that I can recall). It took off like a rocket and was blowing out of the carboy within 12 hours. I put the air lock back on after blow off stopped. After about 72 hours the beer (weizebock) was sitting at 61 degrees, so I moved the carboy to a warmer spot. It took off again and blew the air lock. Now sitting at 68 with no more blow off but a solid kraesun.
Is this typical for this yeast? I was surprised it took off again like that. I have a Belgian going right next to it (3787) and it’s just been chugging along without the violence.
Love the Weihenstephan yeast, makes great beers. I put in a few drops of fermcap on my last dunkelweizen and that kept it in check. I will be doing the same for a weizenbock I’m brewing today or sometime this weekend.
i used this 3 months ago on a dunkle weizen and it went crazy in my 6.5 gallon carboy. i usually use wlp300. i got sulfur fermenting at 65F, that never full dissipated (for my tastes) coming out of the keg. ive gone back to wlp300…no sulfur, great banana that i love from my German hefeweizens.
It was literally pouring out the neck of a 6 gallon better bottle. I don’t think an extra half gallon of space would have contained it, either. Next time maybe I’ll rig up a three gallon bottle as a Burton union.
I use a make-shift blow-off tube by taking the cap and cup off the airlock. 1/2" ID hose fits perfectly on the stem. I then run that tubing into a plastic jug filled with water.
My usual approach is along those lines. This time I thought I’d just throw some tinfoil over it (before it blew off) and when I got back to it and it was foaming over I figured “what the heck” and just let it go.
So I guess it was a bit of an open ferment with a small surface area that was open.
Considering that all that gunk was coming out of the fermenter, I wouldn’t really call that an “open fermentation”. That is, not much chance for wild things to get in.
Don’t use fermcap. Especially if you want to harvest this yeast. Simply collect the overflowing yeast after the gunk has been blown off. No yeast washing required.
Well I just harvested yeast from WY3068 from a Dunkelweizen that I had used fermcap-s on. It was from the yeast cake. You got me worried, like I did something wrong. I used the yeast for a weizenbock yesterday. Took off like a rocket in 12 hours or less. Thought you were implying it messed with the yeast somehow.
