Hefe yeast chillin' on top

[Cody]

After almost two weeks in the fermenter, my WLP380 yeast are still chilling on top of the bear. I've given it a few gentle swirls, to try and release any trapped CO2 and mix any yeast back in to help clean things up a bit. My concern is that this won't go away by the time I am ready to bottle in another week. Granted, it's not a huge problem, but I'm just wondering about the best way to handle this. RDWHAHB, or continue to gently swirl every so often?

On a side note, plenty of sulfur compounds were produced with this yeast. Some of them are still hanging around. How do these get cleaned up? By the yeast, or are they dissipated/off-gassed?

Thanks.

[brewinhard]

This yeast is a true "top cropping yeast" that gathers together for a party on the surface of your wort. You could keep swirling it to drop the yeast back into the beer. After a few rounds of that, you could also take a gravity reading and see if the beer is done. If it is done, then you could always rack from underneath the krausen for packaging no problems. And yes, the yeast will clean up any off-flavors given due time.

[thatguy314]

First I'd check (as described above) to make sure the beer is truly done fermenting and cleaning up. Sometimes the yeast will wait until they're done. Occasionally (i.e., with London Ale II from wyeast) it just won't drop.

You can always rack under as they describe above. However, if you have the ability to put your whole fermentor in a fridge for a day or so, the yeast will just floc out and it'll leave you with nice clear beer to rack into the bottling bucket or keg.

[Cody]

Awesome. Thanks, guys. I wondered if this was just one of those top croppers. I checked a few days ago and the SG had dropped from 1.051 to 1.015, but I'm still getting some slight signs of fermentation. I had been planning on leaving it for another week and a half, anyway, and this just serves to confirm my thoughts. I appreciate the help!

[ScrandyAndy]

I've had this with the kolsch yeast. And both methods described made great beer. Don't sweat it.