weizen krausen

[MitchK]

6 days into fermentation I still have a super large krausen hanging around... I heard this was a trait of wheat beers (or wheat yeast, not sure which one... Or both?).

My last batch definitely didn't have this. If it's still there in another week (when I really want the carboy free for a batch of wine to rack into secondary) what can/should I do about it? A google search brought up a lot of people saying you shouldn't leave a weizen in primary for more than 2/3 weeks max and also lots of accounts of the krausen still not falling without some kind of manual agitation by that time... Do I rack around it or try to knock it down with a spoon? I am not opposed to giving it more time to age once it's out of the carboy (and away from it's current yeast cake sandwich with a krausen on top and trub on bottom) and into a keg (first batch I'm kegging).

Do you think cold crashing it in a week would force the krausen to drop? I have it in a mini fridge attached to an inkbird + carboy thermowell combo. The other option would be upping the temperature to speed fermentation along... I have gotten a lot of conflicting temperature info on this yeast and recipe. The everwood ave store page for the recipe says " The temperature of fermentation is important with this particular style with 63-65 F (17-18 C) being optimal.", the PDF instructions for the recipe on everwood ave says "Fermentation will occur the best for this yeast between 20-23°C (68-73°F)" but I think it might be a copy pasted line from something using standard ale yeast.... The spec sheet for the yeast on the other hand says:

"12-25°C (53.6-77°F) ideally 18-24°C (64.4-75.2°F)
for clover flavors : below 22°C (71.6°F)
for banana flavor: above 23°C (73.4°F"

So I went with 68 as the kind of "middle of the road" pick so far. Debating jumping it up a little to speed it along for the next week, then cold crashing it and kegging it next weekend.

[Lucas]

You could up the temperature a little bit to speed things along. This will probably help to "clean up" the beer a little bit too. The warmer temperature helps the yeast clear off some not-so-tasty byproducts of fermentation. I would not rack out of primary until the krausen is gone and the activity is done, and I would not really suggest crash-cooling to stop the activity. Sometimes yeast just needs time to do its job.

[MitchK]

I may have to grab another carboy then if the krausen hasn't fallen by next weekend (as I'll need one for the white wine we just started).

I decided to do this entire batch in a glass carboy because I needed my plastic bucket for wine activities (getting the red and white going hoping to have them be drinkable by christmas) and I figured it could be done start to finish in the carboy since its only a 5 gallon batch, into a keg, then the carboy could be used for the white wine as soon as it finishes up primary in a week...