Fletcher21
Well-Known Member
Hey is there any way to avoid getting the pancake layer when conditioning in bottles?
Pancake layer in bottles
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maffewl
Well-Known Member
You can filter it out, but you'll also filter out the yeast needed for bottle conditioning.
CABeerMaker
Well-Known Member
Really depends on how thick the layer is. A thin little line of yeast at the bottom is normal, however a really thick layer may represent that you are stirring up your cake from the bottom of your fermentor. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Hard to say if you really have a problem without actually seeing it.
Are there any real problems that can result from this other than not being able to pour as much out of each bottle?
boo boo
Well-Known Member
The larger the cake and the longer you leave it in bottle, the greater chance you'll pick up yeasty flavours from it. Most people don't worry about it as the beer will be drank long before that would happen though.
smokewater
Well-Known Member
Its high in B vitamins. Pour the beer in a glass, chug the yeast from the bottle and tell SWMBO you are taking your vitamins.
Fletcher21
Well-Known Member
It's not that big of a layer and I usually pour it into a glass anyways but I just thought I would put the question out there. I have done a few batches already and it doesn't bother me but just checking if there was a trick I might be missing.
I am new at this, but I have drank a good bit of beer and I work at a wine store (we sell beer and more too!). Beers along the lines of Duvel that have been bottle conditioned look as if they have a caked layer of yeast that has been sitting there a good while. Even though the beer is bottle conditioned, the clarity is absolute. I am guessing they bottle condition for about a year or so before the beer goes to the shelf. I do not think I am that patient for that long of a wait, but I have noticed the further I go from the bottling date, the better the beer has tasted.
This is bs....actually the longer you leave it in the bottle, the tighter the yeast cake will compress. And yeasty flavors? That's not true either. I've had beers sit for years and not had yeasty flavors. Are you just repeating something you've "heard?"
The longer you chill the beer in the fridge, the tighter the yeast cake. I had a beer in the back of my fridge for 3 months, that I could completely upend and no yeast came out. Longer in the cold the tighter the yeast cake becomes. Even just chilling for a week (besides getting rid of chill haze) will go to great lengths to allow you to leave the yeast behind, but with only a minimum amount of beer.
Now Fletcher21, If you are bottle conditioning your living beer, you can't avoid it. It's a natural part of the process.
Read this, and learn to love the yeast. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/anyone-using-filter-bottling-123758/#post1379528
Although you can't totally eliminate it, I talk about how you can limit it, here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/appearance-question-too-much-trub-solids-223539/#post2621825
I get very little sediment in my bottles, but even if I do, who cares? It's a part of living beers, including a heck of a lot of my favorite commercial beers. And despite booboos comment, I've never had a "yeasty" taste in beers that weren't meant to have them, even bottle conditioned commercial beers that have cellared for years. The only way you'd get a yeasty taste would be if you shook the beer before pouring it, and even if you did, if the yeast cake is tight it won't shake up that much anyway.
Read what I linked, maybe you'll hate the "dreaded" yeast pancake a lot less.
If you want less yeast save the last bit in the bottle drink from a glass and replenish what alchohol is stealing from your vitamin supply by drinking that sediment seperate.I actually just pour that into a shot glass so i dont have mouthgerms to clean from the bottles so i can just rinse them good and reuse them without worring about bacteria.
jjones17
Well-Known Member
Pancake layer? If you are getting a layer of Pancake in your bottles, stop adding pancakes to your fermenter. That should clear it up. Is it pancake batter, or are they fully cooked? Is there butter and syrup as well?
In all seriousness - I second exactly what revvy said. Yeast is healthy man, stop being such a wimp and live with it.
In all seriousness - I second exactly what revvy said. Yeast is healthy man, stop being such a wimp and live with it.
Well you know there was the "Breakfast food in beer" edition of BYO magazine a few months back.
jjones17
Well-Known Member
Well you know there was the "Breakfast food in beer" edition of BYO magazine a few months back.
LOL - I tried beer for breakfast and it made me feel like I was half dead the rest of the day. I like beer better as an un-wind kind of thing. Maybe it had to do with the breakfast beer being 650ML bottle of 10.5% ABV belgium....
boo boo
Well-Known Member
You're just quoting a bunch of stuff, most of it out dated. I figured you believed in autolysis as well. You're about 30 years out of date about that stuff. Autolysis is thought to be a myth for the homebrewer.....you've been here how long and missed the 10,000 discussions about this?!?
Even BYO has changed their tune about yeast contact, despite what Ashton said. But I also figured you were just "quoting" without any true experience about it.
Actually you could benefit from some updated knowledge.
All that stuff you quote was passed on old beliefs about yeast, it was all just repeated over and over rotely just like you're doing....even John Palmer retracted his original views about that as says he just regurgitated it rotely in the first version of the book, but that doesn't mean it's true these days.
John Palmer has changed many ideas since the online version of the book went up several years ago.
This is an ever evolving hobby, and information and ideas change. And now with places like this with a huuge amount of dedicated and serious brewers, as well as all the podcasts online, you will find the most state of the art brewing info.
Fermenting the beer is just a part of what the yeast do. If you leave the beer alone, they will go back and clean up the byproducts of fermentation that often lead to off flavors. That's why many brewers skip secondary and leave our beers alone in primary for a month. It leaves plenty of time for the yeast to ferment, clean up after themselves and then fall out, leaving our beers crystal clear, with a tight yeast cake.
This is the latest recommendation, it is the same one many of us have been giving for several years on here.
John Palmer said:
THIS is where the latest discussion and all your questions answered.
We have multiple threads about this all over the place, like this one,so we really don't need to go over it again, all the info you need is here;
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/
We basically proved that old theory wrong on here 5 years ago, and now the rest fo the brewing community is catching up. Though a lot of old dogs don't tend to follow the latest news, and perpetuate the old stuff.
The autolysis from prolong yeast contact has fallen by the wayside, in fact yeast contact is now seen as a good thing.
All my beers sit a minimum of 1 month in the primary. And I recently bottled a beer that sat in primary for 5.5 months with no ill effects.....
You'll find that more and more recipes these days do not advocate moving to a secondary at all, but mention primary for a month, which is starting to reflect the shift in brewing culture that has occurred in the last 4 years, MOSTLY because of many of us on here, skipping secondary, opting for longer primaries, and writing about it. Recipes in BYO have begun stating that in their magazine. I remember the "scandal" it caused i the letters to the editor's section a month later, it was just like how it was here when we began discussing it, except a lot more civil than it was here. But after the Byo/Basic brewing experiment, they started reflecting it in their recipes.
It's no different from being in the bottle or the fermenter these days. Today's healthy, modern yeast is not thought to cause problems...just the opposite.....
And seriously, have you ever tasted a "yeasty" flavor in an old bottle conditioned beer?
*shrug*
boo boo
Well-Known Member
Though a lot of old dogs don't tend to follow the latest news, and perpetuate the old stuff.\
That sounds like me alright
And seriously, have you ever tasted a "yeasty" flavor in an old bottle conditioned beer?
*shrug*
Well yes I have, but that might not have been all to do with the yeast
I had a bottle from a customer that was 2 years old that had a real unimagined yeasty flavour.
I find it strange that Ashtons book that was only released in /07 would have misinformation like that
Perhaps I should start upgrading my reading resources and unlearn/relearn a few things.
Oh and Booboo,
You know what Ashton said once, but you didn't know what he's said in his column in the last 6 months do you?
FYI, not too long ago (in one of the last three issues) Ashton actually recommended LAGERING in the bottle and not a brite tank. Just going straight from primary to bottles and lager there.....In case you don't know, to "LAGER" means "To Store" and that can be months and months....So I don't think Ashton's even believing that yeast contact is bad anymore....even in the bottles.
A book, or an article is a snapshot of the author's body of knowlege and the "common wisdom" at the time the author wrote the it, which may mean 3 years before it was even published. Papazian's book is 30+ years old. The basic knowlege is good, but brewing science and experience has progressed to where some things an author believes or says at that time may no-longer be valid...even to the author.
John Palmer has changed many ideas since the online version of the book went up several years ago.
Most of the time when someone "revises" a book they don't necessarilly "re-write" the entire thing...and unless they annotated the changes, often all a "revised" edition has to make it up to date is a new introduction, and maybe the addition or removal of some things. But Rarely is a revision in a book a serious comb through of the entire book.
This is an ever evolving hobby, and information and ideas change. And now with places like this with a huuge amount of dedicated and serious brewers, as well as all the podcasts online, you will find the most state of the art brewing info.
Charlie Papazian, JUST discovered the idea of using rice hulls in his mash tun to prevent stuck sparges....He talked about it in a Basic brewing podcast in the last couple of years....But if you just take his book as his only level of knowledge you wouldn't know it would you?
You know what Ashton said once, but you didn't know what he's said in his column in the last 6 months do you?
FYI, not too long ago (in one of the last three issues) Ashton actually recommended LAGERING in the bottle and not a brite tank. Just going straight from primary to bottles and lager there.....In case you don't know, to "LAGER" means "To Store" and that can be months and months....So I don't think Ashton's even believing that yeast contact is bad anymore....even in the bottles.
A book, or an article is a snapshot of the author's body of knowlege and the "common wisdom" at the time the author wrote the it, which may mean 3 years before it was even published. Papazian's book is 30+ years old. The basic knowlege is good, but brewing science and experience has progressed to where some things an author believes or says at that time may no-longer be valid...even to the author.
John Palmer has changed many ideas since the online version of the book went up several years ago.
Most of the time when someone "revises" a book they don't necessarilly "re-write" the entire thing...and unless they annotated the changes, often all a "revised" edition has to make it up to date is a new introduction, and maybe the addition or removal of some things. But Rarely is a revision in a book a serious comb through of the entire book.
This is an ever evolving hobby, and information and ideas change. And now with places like this with a huuge amount of dedicated and serious brewers, as well as all the podcasts online, you will find the most state of the art brewing info.
Charlie Papazian, JUST discovered the idea of using rice hulls in his mash tun to prevent stuck sparges....He talked about it in a Basic brewing podcast in the last couple of years....But if you just take his book as his only level of knowledge you wouldn't know it would you?
I find it strange that Ashtons book that was only released in /07 would have misinformation like that
Perhaps I should start upgrading my reading resources and unlearn/relearn a few things.
Because it in 07- that STILL was the prevailing belief....WE HERE actually were the first to start questioning this, by our experience since about that time....it's only been in the last two years that folks outside of this place have begun to think beyond the rote "yeast is bad autolysis yadda yadda yadda" that you quoted. If people just believe it and don't explore it further, then nothing gets done...but we on here usually by accident started leaving our beers in primary longer. And found our beers didn't magically have autolysis, in fact our beers actually were better than when we used to just blindly rack to secondary. And some of us starting doing better in contests with our beers that sat in primary for a month, with comments about how crisp and clear they were.
But it's only been since BYO magazine and Basic Brewing did the experiment in 09 that folks started to outside of here, take it more serious...And then last year John Palmer started to "think" about it rather than just believe it. In fact I think some of it was from reading the millions of discussions on here, because some of his original statements were almost verbatum comments by me and other folks. He even once used the "hot cargo ship" analogy that I have used. So I believe we here influenced the brewing culture profoundly by starting to question and experiment with long primaries and such here.
boo boo
Well-Known Member
Oh and Booboo,
In case you don't know, to "LAGER" means "To Store" and that can be months and months QUOTE]
No need to be condensending, I'm not a complete noob
But yes you are right about the evloving state of brewing and its myths, and I have read about JP and his back tracking on a number of things. I haven't spent a lot of time upgrading my older knowledge and sometimes just spout things from rote. Harder to get things through my thick skull
Oh and Booboo,
In case you don't know, to "LAGER" means "To Store" and that can be months and months QUOTE]
No need to be condensending, I'm not a complete noob
But yes you are right about the evloving state of brewing and its myths, and I have read about JP and his back tracking on a number of things. I haven't spent a lot of time upgrading my older knowledge and sometimes just spout things from rote. Harder to get things through my thick skull
I'm not trying to be condescending....I'm just passing on info..A lot of folks, even who make lagers don't realize what the term to lager means....they think it's called lagering because it uses lager yeast....not what the term actually means. And some folks lager for a week and think that's all well and good.
boo boo
Well-Known Member
Revvy said:
Well, not trying to speak for someone else, but he may have heard it recently. Jamil was talking about too much sediment in bottle conditioned beers that go through extended storage. In the 3/21 show of Brewstrong he mentioned that most homebrewers have far too much yeast sediment in their beers and the extended storage of beers with this much yeast causes the yeast to break down and barf up nasty flavors in the beer. He contrasted this with Sierra Nevada and their more appropriate thin layer for conditioning. It makes sense, really.
EDIT: hah. Looks like I missed the whole rest of this thread.
scoundrel
Well-Known Member
brewit2it said:
I agree. This was one of the main reasons I moved to kegging. Bottling is more tolerable and you don't get caught up in sediment arguments. Not to mention no more priming sugar and complete control over the carbonation level. I recommend not worrying about sediment and focus on the quickest route to kegging.
