Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Mustaches are Fermenting

Both Your Sister's Mustache and Your Mother's Mustache are fermenting nicely. They were slow to start, and I was especially concerned about YSM, because the starter for it was just barely showing any sign of fermentation when I pitched it. I actually bought a dry yeast packet on Monday just in case. I didn't use it, because by Tuesday it had a nice krauesen starting to form.

I still have a question about it, because I did something unconventional with these brews. The carboy of YMM was too full, and since the YSM was a small batch, I had plenty of room in its carboy. So I took about 2-3 quarts of YMM and added it to the YSM. The only problem is that the yeast had already been pitched in the YMM. So it is possible that the small amount of Munich Lager yeast from YMM has propagated in YSM and is fermenting it, instead of the American Ale Yeast that I added originally. If this is the case, it is underpitched, and it's a lager yeast fermenting at ale temperatures, so I might get some off flavors or phenolics. I would do the sniff test for sulfur compounds, (a sure sign of lager yeast activity), but I'm all stuffed up with a head cold, and I'm not sure I could smell anything. We'll see how it turns out.

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