Yeast Head

Hi this is my first post to the forum after recently buying the beersmith software. It seems really good and hopefully will let me plan and run my little brewery.

i have been brewing a while now and have noticed that i only get a yeast head of about 25mm thick (1" in old money) during fermentation. My vessel is at 20 degC roughly and it is about 18in diameter. The final product always seems ok and attenuates very well with good floculation. When reading texts and forums it seems that my yeast head should be a rocky thick structure instead of what looks like a foamy head on a beer. The yeast is re-used white labs liquid yeast dry english ale variety.

Also i am a brewer in the north east of scotland and i was wondering if there are any other UK or scottish based people on the forum for a discussion on sources of ingredients.

Cheers

what types of beer do you brew? the yeast head is will be greater if there is a higher level of protiens

at the moment i am brewing all pale malt beers or beers with a mix of pale and crystal malt with quite a hoppy flavour to them.

Do you think i would see a higher yeast head with a darker beer?

Are you making starters. After I started doing that I had to start using blow off tubes.  5 or 6 inch of foam. 8)

Don

I have a pale ale, an oatmeal stout, and a British ale started yesterday, all using starters in 6.5 acid carboys.(20 GALLON BREW DAY)

Today the pale & the British have a 1" head, the OM stout 4". Just depends on the brew, the suspended solid, protiens and such, plus the activity of the starter/yeast.  

Oh yes, the characteristics/optimal temps of the yeasties...

The yeast is re-used white labs liquid yeast dry english ale variety.

Click to expand...

Don't sweat it. Yeasts behave differently. I brewed with that yeast twice this year... fermentation looked pretty sedate both times, with a  krausen just as you described. The bigger beer finished at 80% attenuation and around 10%abv.

At the other extreme, a wit yeast I used three times always created a 6 to 8" chunky tan sludge that would climb out of the airlock. Really evil-looking stuff. It tried to eat my dog