Homebrew beer V's Commercial Beers

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sparkey17

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Feb 26, 2010
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Hey Folks

Ok this is a question that has kinda bugged me for a bit ,,

how come commercial beer has no yeast deposit at end of bottle and homebrew does ?

Is there anything that we as homebrewers can do during the process to not have yeast deposit ?

,,, Im thinking no ,but maybe there is i havent a clue ,,,

is there something that the large beer companies do that we cant do ?

i have heard that in Canada some of the brew companies spray a sugar solution into the bottles before botteling ?


hope somebody can answer these questions for me

cheers
 
you can filter your home brew also if you keg it. places sell filtering setups for under 100 dollars
 
thanks

in the process of buying a keg a tap system shortly might look at buying a filter too ,,

cheers for that info ,,, ill hold off on the 30,000 filter 100 is more in my price range lol
 
You can get home brew very clear and sediment free without the use of filters. Filters suck because that $100 price tag goes up everytime you use it. The filter pads need replaced with every batch. Try finings and cold crashing. Carefully rack to the keg. After it has sat cold for a week transfer to another keg without moving the first keg. Use 2 black bev out connectors on the transfer hose. The second keg now contains clear sediment free beer. By the way with proper fining and cold crashing there is less than a dusting of yeast in the bottom of the first keg.
 
excellent thanks guys

it pays to ask questions ,, gonna try that system when i get my keg ,,,, cheers
 
If all the commercial beers that you have been drinking are sediment free, then you are drinking the wrong commercial beers. There's plenty of commercial beers with yeast sediment in them, and they tend to be some of the best commercial beers.

-a.
 
I'm not positive about this so someone correct me if I'm wrong. But if you were to cold crash the beer right before you rack it to the keg, you would get a lot more yeast to flocculate. Then you could rack to the keg and force carbonate. It would reduce the sediment a lot although I don't think it would be nothing.
 
The process in commercial brewing is a bit different than what we do at home.

For commercial brewers any haze, cloudiness, etc. = BAD (generally, unless they are deliberately making bottle conditioned beer)

Once fermentation is complete the beer is often transferred to cold conditioning tanks. Yeast settles out here and is removed prior to filtering. Centrifuges are often used to remove the yeast prior to filtering so that already the beer going through the filter is quite clear by homebrew standards. The beer is then filtered and carbonated with CO2 and generally NOT bottle conditioned so there is no settling out of yeast in the bottle.

As far as Canadian brewers spraying a sugar solution in the bottles, I've never heard of this. I can't even think why that would be something they would do unless it's to temper the bitterness of a macro brew to make it more palatable. I wouldn't put it past them. LOL

Great question, btw.
 
Some commercial breweries filter which leaves no sediment in the bottles. Some commercial breweries condition in the bottle which leaves sediment.

Coopers, chimay, young's special london, schofferhoffer, aventinus, erdinger, westmalle, orval and many other wonderfully complex tasty and amazing beers all leave a little bit of yeast at the bottom for you to reculture for your own brew.

Millers, budweiser, Victoria Bitter, XXXX and toohey's Red do not. Pick the beer you'd like to drink and which one you'd like to brew from those lists.

PS. There's a possibility that schofferhoffer use a different yeast strain from their primary in the bottle. Most of the other beers listed use the same strain in primary and bottle though.*

*Except orval which uses brettanomyces which is worth noting
 
hey guys thanks for the replys

as for the guy saying im drinking the wrong beer ,, here in ireland the beers im drinking is usually ,, miller,fosters,heineken etc etc ,, yes there are beers here that are cloudy but most are wheat beers which i find very sweet and dont like ,, i havent seen many commercial beers here that are cloudy ,i have been to specialist shops that foreign beers ,i go there maybe once a month and buy a few different types to see whats out there ..

regarding the canadian beers , a friend of mine here in ireland has a canadian wife he has been to a few brewing plants there ,he too doesnt know why they spray the bottles with a sugar solution ,

one of these days im gonna have a mess around with some kits and see if i can get rid of the yeast at the end of the bottle ,,,,,, if i do ill let ye all know ,, i might be gray and old and have a zimmer frame but ill find out ha ha ha

thanks again guys for the reply and hope to hear from you all soon

regards
mark
 
I don't know of any naturally conditioned commercial lagers, but if Ireland is anything like Britain, most of the draught beers (but not kegged) you get in pubs will be Real Ales.
There's also bottled Guinness which used to be naturally conditioned, but I don't know if it still is.

-a.
 
You will have sediment if you bottle, unless you carbonate the beer before you bottle it (like carbonate in a keg and then bottle). The sediment at the bottom of your bottles is from the yeast that eats the priming sugar and carbonates the beer. I don't think you could carbonate in the bottle without some sediment.
 
cheers guys

so the only way to eliminate yeast is prob to keg and Co2 gas ,,,

in process of looking at kegs at moment a little difficult here in Ireland as there arent many companies selling them have mailed a few places waiting to hear back ,,,
 
In my opinion, the yeast left in the homebrew gives you the vitamins necessary to keep hangovers away

Haven't done a scientific study by any means but I have noticed I'm not really hung over the next day after drinking my own beers and other commercial bottle conditioned beers. I really tied one on friday and drank three of my improperly high ABV (7.7%) Belgian style wits that goes down too easy, a 750 of Trois Pistoles, and a few sips of rum. Woke up the next day feeling fine.:ban:
 
1+ on that. Sediment is always present to some extent if you use sugar for priming.

I think " to some extent" is the operative thing here.


I've seen newbie brewers where they've got a 1/2 inch of yeast in a bottle. THats gross. Then you look at something like Sierra Nevada's pale ale, and you don't even see yeast, and its bottle conditioned.

If you don't want sediment in your bottles, you can't have sediment in the beer that is going in the bottles. That means longer bulk conditioning, more finings, and generally better processes.
 
Then you look at something like Sierra Nevada's pale ale, and you don't even see yeast, and its bottle conditioned.

SNPA has a nice visible layer of yeast at the bottom of every bottle. It's comparable to what any home brewer will get if they gave the yeast enough time to settle out and did a clean rack off the cake. Any home brewer that is getting 1/2 of yeast in their bottles must be trying to bottle a yeasty mess of beer.
 
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