Autolysis: LHBS has me worried

Ok so the guy who works there looks like a stoner, and never offers me any original advice. However he keeps insisting that I must take my brew out of the primary as soon as possible.

Here is why I am worried. I plan on making both a double chocolate stout and a bass clone (both from AHB), but I will be in Ireland for a month. I planned on leaving both in the primary until I got back in my temp controlled freezer. Then I would keg and hopefully have some nice beer to come back to. Anyone see any problems with this plan?

NAH....He's probably of the old school "Leave your beer to long on the yeast cake and you get autolysis" mentality (another brewing urban legend if it's under a couple months). If you're going to be gone only a month you'll be fine. Heck, you're double chocolate stout will probably NEED that long to ferment

You'll have nice clear beer when you get back

I would think the only potential problem would be autolysis but I'm pretty sure it takes longer than one month to occur.
It should be great

{edit: beaten by seconds....}

lies lies all lies!

seriously though don't stress it. while I usually use a secondary (I am a problematic dry hopper) I use the one fermenter method all the time. The wheat I just kegged spent almost 5 weeks in it's primary (only) fermenter.

RDWHAHB

Plenty of people around here don't secondary at all, and regularly leave beers on the yeast cake for a month. No worries.

maltMonkey said:

I would think the only potential problem would be autolysis but I'm pretty sure it takes longer than one month to occur.
It should be great

Click to expand...

This is the part of How to brew that most people fail to notice, when they read about the "dreaded" autolysis. (Sometimes I wish beginner books would leave out all the negative stuff....I think it breeds too much fear in "da n00bs.")

How To Brew said:

As a final note on this subject, I should mention that by brewing with healthy yeast in a well-prepared wort, many experienced brewers, myself included, have been able to leave a beer in the primary fermenter for several months without any evidence of autolysis...

Click to expand...

Thank you guys! I have heard of so many people doing this, so I knew it could be done. He just had planted that seed in the back of my mind, and I couldn't shake it. This make me feel TONS better. :rockin:

Since I will be keeping it in my keezer, and can keep the temperature whatever I like (ranco), should I lower the temp to the lower end so that the yeast works a little slower?

A month should be fine, and most yeasts do quite well on the lower end of the range. You don't need to get the temperature down there to be safe, though.


TL

The LHBS has to give you the most conservative advice sometimes as they would rather be wrong with no ill effects than wrong with bad effects.

If you do as they say, you will never get autolysis.
If they tell you that one month is OK and anything remotely off occurs (including but not restricted to autolysis) most people will blame them for bad advice.

I always take their advice with this grain of salt.

If you are a beginner, they would rather you make a problem-free beer than a great beer.

IIRC, even in the commercial brewery unitanks it still takes up to something like 5 months before signs of autolysis begin to become evident. And in those tanks the pressures on the fallen yeast are much, much greater given the volumes. Not that pressure on the cell wall is a factor of autolysis.

If you arent familiar with Autolysis, read about it. In summary it's a function of the yeast depleting it's internal food stores (glycogen primarily) and then getting to a point where it digests itself. Okay, that is really summarized but, to the point.

Even White Labs ensures viability in their package for up to 4 months and remeber, the package has little to do with how hungry for how long the yeast go.

I'm starting to think that autolysis-practically speaking-is a myth so that we'll feel like we have something we need to do so as not to be bored. The only bad batches I've had were ones where I used a 2ndary (not necessarily the reason-but just saying). On the other hand, I've recently started doing 4-6 weeks in the primary, then right to the bottle. These beers have also ended up very clear, and tasted great.

I did have a batch of Apfelwein that I left in the primary for about 3 months (I'm a bad procrastinator). It did have a slight off-taste, but it wasn't sulfuric, and it seems to be fading. I guess I don't see a need to introduce more room for error by over-activity when the yeast know what they're doing and will do the work for me.

BrewDey said:

I'm starting to think that autolysis-practically speaking-is a myth so that we'll feel like we have something we need to do so as not to be bored. The only bad batches I've had were ones where I used a 2ndary (not necessarily the reason-but just saying).

Click to expand...

I think you may well be right on the autolysis as urban myth, at least on the timescale of most brewers. I would actively prefer to have my beer in primary for four weeks rather than two, if it wasn't so damn hard to be patient when waiting for beer.

Jamil has said that a common problem he had early on in his brewing career was racking to secondary too early, after only a week or so. As I understand his take on it, secondaries are not harmful in themselves - but if you use one too soon, you may get some undesirable flavors from fermentation byproducts that the yeast hasn't cleared up.

JZ is the reason I won't ever use a secondary... w00t

I'm suspicious that there is a mix-up (or mis-use) of terminology. I'm thinking that many people throw around the term autolysis, when in fact they are not talking about true autolysis, and then the people who define autolysis in the technical sense assume the others are talking about true autolysis, when they are not really, and then say no, there is no autolysis and the original user of the term is confused because they taste something. Make sense?

I maintain, that I can taste the difference in a beer that has sat on a lot of yeast for a month in primary, versus one that was transfered after one week to secondary. The yeast is not inert. If I toss a bunch of sterile marbles in, that won't affect the flavor, but I think a lot of yeast being present would. I find it hard to believe that 3 extra weeks sitting on a whole lot of yeast is not going to influence the flavor. Here's where the problem arises, some folks will incorrectly say the flavor change is due to autolysis, when this is not the case. Then the others will say, no, there is no autolysis, and therefore there is no difference in flavor, but the original person (who incorrectly used the term in question) felt they tasted something. The result - confusion and gnashing of teeth.

I like the flavor of yeast in a hefe weizen or wheat beer, but not in all of my beers. This is what I taste, not the byproducts of yeast dying, but the actual flavor of the yeast themselves. I think this would not be considered an off taste at all by many, but it is by others - well, at least by me. I don't want to taste yeast in a pale ale, I want clean malt and hop flavors.

So yes, autolysis is a myth, but that doesn't mean there aren't flavor changes due to other reasons.

Maybe my palette isn't sensitive enough, but I've never noticed a specific unusual flavor from leaving my beers in the primary for a a long time. I've done this with several batches, and there's no one flavor that I noticed they all had.

I always get my beer out of the primary shortly after it is done fermenting, no matter that time that takes. 3 days, 2 weeks, both are possible. The reason is 2 fold, one is I want to make more beer and only have one primary bucket. The second is I usually end up having my beer sit in the secondary waiting for a keg for a good 2 months or better waiting for an open spot in the kegerator, behind the other beers in secondary. It's pretty clear at that point and a week in the kegerater and it's just like it was filtered.
The two in my sig now I plan on being in secondary for at least 6 months maybe a year. No way I'm having them in the primary that long.