Mangrove Jack M44 is a strange one!

[Futureboy77]

Brewed a hop heavy APA on Friday. OG was 1054. I don't trust my airlock for activity as it seldom bubbles, so I look at the Krausen for signs of activity. I've had maybe 5mm of Krausen since Saturday afternoon, so I pitched a second pack tonight. Temp is 18/19 degrees.

Very strange, when using US05 etc, I've always had very visible signs of fermentation with high Krausen.
Hopefully it comes out ok as it smells great.

The joys of all the homebrew variables!

 

[Drunkula]

M44 is notoriously slow to get going. I think everyone on here that's used it had the same experience.

 

[Futureboy77]

All forums seem to indicate the same Drunkula. I've never had one so slow to get moving before.
Hopefully, the finished article make up for the concern!

Thanks to mods for moving original post to the correct sub forum.

 

[Brew_DD2]

Starts slow but rips through after the lag phase. Prefer it to US-05 tbh.

 

[chthon]

It sure is. This is the kraüsen I got when I fermented a Duvel clone with it.

 

[krispn]

I used M44 recently for the first time and I’m gonna keep some handy as it was cracking. Didn’t notice the lag but it ripped through the brew. I remade the recipe with Imperial Joystick but had some issues (which were all my own doing to be fair) and think in the future I’m gonna stick with M44 in that brew and my West Coast style IPA’s in general. Might try a Sierra Nevada clone with it next.

 

[MickDundee]

Starts slow but rips through after the lag phase. Prefer it to US-05 tbh.

I know I sound like a broken record because I’ve said similar a lot recently, but of the dried west coast yeasts from the 3 “main players” (Lallemand, Fermentis, MJ) I actually like US-05 least.