How is this possible ?!?!?!?!

[Brewbirds]

Brewed up a Dusseldorf Alt on Saturday and pitched the yeast cake from a Kolsch on it; on Sunday it looked like nothing was even tying to happen.

This morning we were discussing a plan in case there was a problem (I thought I might have killed the yeast with Star San for lack of other possibilities).

I was going to go pull a small sample and pitch a 2 gram BD sache on it as a test.

When I took a reading on the sample it was at .099. so I took a second reading and got the same. This from a starting, measured Gravity of 1.068.

No Krausen, no top activity at all and it fermented out in two days!!

What is going on here? Is this even possible??

[Beer-lord]

First, have you checked the hydrometer? Have another to try just in case?
I would have to agree that first, it's very fast (exactly what yeast was this cake from) and second, how can (do) you get to .099? What temperature did it ferment? Do you see anything stuck to the sides? Anything sitting on the bottom?

What's it taste like? Sweet, dry????

[mashani]

Do you see krausen krud / beer stone, anything up on the fermenter walls? It is possible you went to bed, the yeast went mad, and when you woke up it was all over.

I find it hard to believe you got no krausen pitching on a yeast cake, BUT I don't find it hard to believe that the yeast could go ape shit and ferment it out very quickly. Unless you removed a bunch of the cake you basically are overpitching by a huge amount, so there is no "growth phase" lag, it just starts munching.

It should taste very dry at that FG if your hydro is working right. Does it?

I've never seen Kolsch yeast ferment out like that though - only French Saison. But that could be due to the overpitching too.

It just wont taste quite like it should, a normal Alt would not be anywhere near that dry.

EDIT: I've never pitched on a Kolsch yeast cake btw... I do it with 3787 where I brew a paterbier and then use the cake to brew a dubbel or triple or quad. That tends to make a huge mess and is hard to miss LOL.

[dbrowning]

Is that really .099? Or is it 0.990?

[mashani]

Is that really .099? Or is it 0.990?

wow, I didn't even see that... my brain only registered 0.9nn because I've never had/heard of anything going lower then that...

[Beer-lord]

Same but many times people post the decimal wrong so I just went past it.

[Brewbirds]

Sorry according to BB2 it was 0.009 guys and I'm glad you are as freaked as me.

I know about looking for the Krausen ring and trub but I aerate with a mixer (one paddle) so I always have a foamy layer at pitching because the wort froths up and since it was a yeast cake there was going to be some "stuff" on the bottom before fermentation started so it would be hard to say what was new trub.

My good hydrometer did the suicide thing a while back and the backup is a cheapy/freeby that came in a CraigsList score which BB2 decides he doesn't trust. All readings were from our refractometer and it's BeerSmith calculator.

The sample tasted like flat, and alas it might be dry, beer; no off flavors, no sweetness, no cider etc.

Per BB2 (the Boss) I put it in the fridge for cold crash but I am totally not comfortable with this, the whole thing was to weird.

We tried to do a step mash on this wort and had some issues but I can't grasp how that would have affected the wort in this way. ?

Worse yet BB2 wanted to brew the Dandelion syrup and one more batch on this yeast cake in near future.

[JimH]

Definitely weird. I don't know if I would use that yeast cake again. But, if you do bottle this thing, don't put them anywhere near any other beers. Don't want 22 bottle bombs destroying the pipeline!

[Brewbirds]

Definitely weird. I don't know if I would use that yeast cake again. But, if you do bottle this thing, don't put them anywhere near any other beers. Don't want 22 bottle bombs destroying the pipeline!

I hear you Jim, if anything weird happens on a batch I put them in a Styrofoam cooler which we refer to as "The Bomb Squad".

I got to thinking that since I pulled the sample from the spigot I might have got mostly slurry from the bottom and not as much of the new wort maybe???

I've not seen the likes of this before; I think I'll draw some more off to clear the spigot and test it again and maybe pull some from the top with a sterilized pipette.

After the crazy step mashing that took forever I sure hope this reading is wrong.