Top Cropping

Above is the picture of the krausen on top of the tripel right now. The foam that you see is all yeast and top cropping is a method utilized by commercial(especially Belgian) and homebrewers alike. The yeast in the krausen is very healthy, active yeast and brewers will skim the krausen off the fermenting batches and use that for the next batch. Since we only have 1 batch going at a time, we will save the yeast and make a starter with it later to grow it a little more and then use it again. By doing this we are saving money by not having to spend $7.75 per vial of yeast, and maybe more importantly (depending on how cheap you are) you are ensuring that you have very healthy viable yeast for the next batch of beer. The picture below is the jar of yeast, and overtime it will settle into a small layer on the bottom. It may look small, but there is probably 100 billion or more yeast cells in the jar which is the amount that comes in the vials from the homebrew store. Not enough for a typical brew we make (the Tripel required 300 billion cells) but enough to make a simple starter from.

In the previous post about the tripel, specifically Westmalle, I just found out that the Belgian yeast strain we use is actually the Westmalle strain. Hopefully our brews will be very similar to the originals, but if they are close, I know they'll be good. We are also planning on making a Dubbel in the beginning of June, so we should have a decent amount of Belgian beers ready by the Fall time.