[BrewBama]

Just to remind me that I’m not in charge of making beer, my yeast has decided to cause me to scratch my head.

Friday I brewed the second in my Summer Pale Ale series where I pitched yeast harvested from the Cascade Pale Ale. It was as if the stars aligned: I cooled my wort to not quite pitching temp and finished it off in the fermenter fridge like I always do. The SnS starter from the harvested yeast was at full krausen right when the wort hit the preferred pitching temp and I was ready to hit the rack. pitched the starter with a smile on my face and had sweet dreams of a future Amarillo Pale Ale.

I woke up Sat AM and checked on progress where I was met with fairly vigorous bubbles in the blowoff jar so I made a pot of coffee, sausage gravy and biscuits, and continued on with my day pleased at what a great brewer I am. Sat eve as I poured myself a pint of Czech Pils as a reward for my awesomeness, I decided to peek in and see how the bubbles are going. I was somewhat shocked to see not a bubble. Nothing. No signs of fermentation. Weird. I took a hydrometer sample and saw that I was 10 points lower than OG so there was progress — I wasn’t just imagining things.  So, I bumped up the temp 5*F (still within temp range for the yeast) to see if I could improve performance.

Today after church, I poured another Czech Pils to have with lunch and peeked in to see if the 5*F temp change I made last night made a difference. Wow. The blowoff jar is full of yeast as is the blowoff line and the CO2 isn’t just bubbling, it’s nearly one continuous CO2 stream. LOL.

Just when I think this is a routine brew, nothing to see here, the yeast figured they’d let me know who’s in charge by slamming on the brakes then flooring it again. The old yeast brake check to get me off their bumper. Who knows.

Weird.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Robert]

Is it possible that your active starter suddenly realized how much room and food there was, and took a break from fermenting to adapt  and grow -- IOW the clock on a normal lag phase and fermentation started running when the yeast realized and started adapting to actual conditions, which also means there was no real advantage to the 007 over just pitching slurry?  Must be a sensible explanation,  and it might be good to figure it out to optimize future process.   Maybe you could save some trouble, if it turns out the yeast is actually predictable, but doesn't recognize your expectations.

More important, what was the Sunday lunch with that Pils?  And how would the Pils be with the biscuits and gravy?   

[denny]

Just wait for the yeast to do it's thing.  It helps if you don't constantly monitor the fermentation.  Relax....

[BrewBama]

Interesting thoughts Robert. I don’t really mind that I was brake checked but I’d not experienced that in the past. Good stuff! The lunch was ham salad I made from the last of the Apple smoked Bourbon glazed Easter ham on a couple slices of brioche.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing Tilt hydrometer is not a sponsor Denny?  I enjoy monitoring the bubbles in the blowoff jar. It gives me hope of what is to come. LOL


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RC]

Yeast only metabolize one sugar at a time and have separate membrane transporters for each sugar (although I think glucose and fructose use the same transporter). The order of metabolism is glucose-->fructose-->maltose-->maltotriose. Only one type of transporter is in the cell membrane at a time, so when the yeast switch sugars, they have to deconstruct the current transporter and construct the next type's. Usually there's so much overlap in when cells do this that there's no observable lull in fermentation. But I suppose that if you had an atypically high amount of glucose or fructose in your wort, the lull might be observable.

[BrewBama]

Also very interesting thoughts RC. Thx!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[denny]

Interesting thoughts Robert. I don’t really mind that I was brake checked but I’d not experienced that in the past. Good stuff! The lunch was ham salad I made from the last of the Apple smoked Bourbon glazed Easter ham on a couple slices of brioche.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing Tilt hydrometer is not a sponsor Denny?  I enjoy monitoring the bubbles in the blowoff jar. It gives me hope of what is to come. LOL


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, but it wouldn't change my opinion if they were. But if you enjoy the monitoring, keep it up.  Me, I'd rather just sit back and wait.