All-grain separated in the fermenter

[ellicit]

I'm pretty new to the subject but I decided to do an all-grain Belgian Wit, everything went well and as it should until it was time to pitch the yeast, I used White Labs Belgian Wit Ale yeast, gave it a shake to mix it up just prior to pitching and when I open the cap it damn near exploded, not to mention it stress fermentation after about 5 hours ran really strong for 12 then absolutely died, and the beer seemed to separate (any portion of flavor and yeast on the bottom and water on the top). Has anyone else ran into this or could tell me what happened?

 

[rycov]

that sounds pretty crazy. did you take any pictures?

 

[rjwhite41]

Are you just talking about the trub with beer sitting on top or is there a separation of color in the actual liquid?

 

[ellicit]

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures but no it actually separated as in bottom half was a white trub and the top half was a pale dirty water, never seen anything like it before and can't find anything about it on the net. I'm just wondering if it was a result of bad yeast.

 

[Gameface]

Is it possible you got infected yeast?

 

[Revvy]

All that is happenning is that you are a nervous newb, and aren't realizing that you are simply seeing proteins and break material settling out into the trub, and yeast doing it's thing.

Relax, and walk away from the fermenter, the yeast know what they need to do, they're not infected, fermentation is ugly and smelly on normal days. Just stop hovering over them, and let them do their job.

 

[zeb]

sounds weird. Maybe give your fermenter a couple of twists and get that trub a churn to get the yeast going again. I dunno, it might also be your grain wasn't crushed well which could have caused a bad mash? Thats just a guess cuz I only have done one all grain (which was yesterday), I would have liked to see what that looks like.

EDIT: Hey Revvy, our conversation last week about not racking to a secondary has made me decide that on this AG batch I made will do just that. Thanks for the advise.
This is a pic just after adding yeast yesterday, its bubbling away today!

 

[gunner65]

Again Newbs listen to Revvy its just fermenting.

 

[ellicit]

I'll continue to let it go as revvy says, but I didn't mention it's been fermenting for 14 days, and was getting ready to bottle, I undertake the trub settling guess the recipe was just bland or something I guess. Here is the picture of what it looked like just after the pitch before it separated: http://db.tt/huHCIsi
After it separated the white was taking up 6" of the bottom of the Carnot and the top 12" was a translucent tan with no flavor whatsoever.

 

[rjwhite41]

Do you have a pic after it separated so we can see what you are talking about?

 

[MaynardX]

Did you take a gravity reading? 14 days in, you should be close to done with your fermentation. I wouldn't worry about the looks (aka separation). I've had it in some of my beers. Its just the yeast and protein settling out of the beer.

 

[gunner65]

Also note that some beer does not taste like it should before carbing/conditioning bottle it and leave it be for about 4 weeks then come back here and let us know. The white stuff at the bottom is yeast cake perfectly normal.

 

[cravej]

Here is the picture of what it looked like just after the pitch before it separated: http://db.tt/huHCIsi

What does it look like now?

 

[Kugster]

What does it look like now?

We may never know...