I'm fermenting a brown ale (GAW=1.044 /9; VIF 5.5g) in a 6g plastic carboy with Nottingham ale yeast at 20C. About 5 hours after pitching, there was already some activity, and a bubble from the blowoff tube every few seconds. The next day there was about 2" kreusen. This morning the kreusen had totally disappeared, and the sanitizer in the blowoff bucket was still pristine. Primary seems to be done in 40 hours ?! Note that during fermentation, temperature went up to 22C (2C above ambient room temp).
Based on previous experience (with Nottingham and other yeast strains), I was expecting about 3 to 4 days of high kreusen, and definitely some overflow through the blowoff tube.
So two questions:
- should the kreusen collapse so quickly?
- how important is it to get rid of the hop residues, gunk, etc. that are visible on top of the kreusen? If the fermentation does not purge this through the blowoff tube, it's not possible to remove it from a 'closed' fermenter (e.g. carboy)
Thanks, and cheers
BDP
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