So I brewed a new style for me last week, a Belgian Blonde Ale. The grain bill consisted of 80% Belgian Pils, 10% White Wheat Malt, and 10% Cane Sugar.
I was using a White Labs yeast strain for the first time. It had two months to go until the "Best Before" date which after some research meant it had been produced two months ago. I threw it on the stir plate for 36 hours as usual with all my liquid strains and let it ferment out, then I crashed it. I could tell almost immediately that this strain doesn't floc worth a poo. Not that I care in this particular instance, just found it interesting as most Belgian beers I've had aren't "brilliant" in clarity. Anyway, I brewed last Tuesday and within 12 hours I had a major activity going on in the primary which I contributed to the simple cane sugar. But after 24 hours, it was rocking away on the complex sugar from the malt.
I was fermenting this at 72°. Then after about three days, most of the fermentation activity had stalled and my gravity was stuck at 1.035 (my OG was 1.061). After doing some more research, this strain has a tendency to stall in the 30's and you're instructed to aerate or rack to get the yeast moving again. Not really wanting to do either of those things, I have been giving the carboy about 30 seconds of swirl time every day and it seems to be fermenting as normal. My sample reading yesterday was 1.022 after six days in the primary. This is a slow fermenting yeast, that's for sure. It might be another week or two before she's finished. Maybe I'm just impatient...correction, I am impatient. Which for you youngsters out there, is not a good thing in this hobby.
Anyone else had experiences with this strain or Belgian yeasts acting like this?
Cheers folks!
