Apologies to Revvy

DannyG said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on extended primaries vs extended bottle conditioning? Will a few weeks in primary and then two months in a bottle give you a beer that's as good as a beer that's two months in primary, then a few weeks in bottle?

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Only one way to find out for sure

osagedr said:

Are there a lot of commercial breweries moving to extended time on the yeast?

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Whoot!!! LMFAO. I'm sure Duvel and Unibroue are just chompng the bits
Their beers leave the breweries at about three months and spend 5 days in primary. It's hard to get a staff of microbioligists who know the pathways by heart from scientific evidence to give credince to a bunch homebrewers goofing around in their garages making preposterous judgements based on assumptions. And that includes a metalurgist amatuer brewer and his bud giving advice about brewing. IMO, no credentials, no listen to........

osagedr said:

Are there a lot of commercial breweries moving to extended time on the yeast?

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I toured the Great Lakes Brewery last month and I was told that they only leave their beer on the yeast 1 week for ales and 2 for lagers. I am unsure of other commercial breweries but that is their take on the matter.

Commercial breweries? C'mon...

Most of them just want to get a reproducible product out the door as quickly as possible. The rest is just process refinement, with maximizing ROI to the shareholder as the top priority.

What's a choad?

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It's the spot between the balls and the butt

Have you ever opened an old bottle conditioned beer to find it tastes like someone put beer, rubber, and meat into a Bass-O-Matic? Probably not

Sort of in the same vein as this, I just brewed a mild in a keg using the gas disconnect as my blow off tube. I tried just putting that keg I fermented in the fridge, crash cooled it. Its an mild, so I warmed my kegerator back up to cellar temp and served from the keg I brewed in.

Its good, after two cloudy pints its relatively clear and drinkable! I thought it would be yeast soup and I though I would have to rack off into another keg! I think I only got away with this because of low gravity and using an flocculent English ale yeast.

Screw my primary. Extended aging on yeast cake in the fridge, no risk of oxidation, lower risk of contamination, clean beer, fresh (but not green) tasking beer.

So are we going to cover peeing into your carboy to sanitize now?

That's what Budweiser does

pj_rage said:

I know it's not the point of this thread, but I thought IPAs were best consumed "fresh". How do most of you define "fresh", like, within what time frame? The OP had seems to have fermented one for 8+ months and claims it's one of, if not the best IPA he's ever had. Is there two sides to the "fresh" coin here?

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Yup, really off topic. But then this thread has begun to wander all over the place anyway.

You're probably thinking of wheat beers. General wisdom is that they are best consumed young.

Without getting into the primary versus secondary question (i.e., where the aging occurs), an IPA will benefit from bulk or bottle aging for a month or so after fermentation is complete before drinking, like any other pale ale.

billtzk said:

Without getting into the primary versus secondary question (i.e., where the aging occurs), an IPA will benefit from bulk or bottle aging for a month or so after fermentation is complete before drinking, like any other pale ale.

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+1

And an IPA will benefit just as much from any other style of beer from a month in some combination of all primary or primary + secondary, especially with dry hopping.

Basically the idea that and IPA needs to be consumend "young" really just means that if you stick your IPA in a bottle for a year and sample it, it won't be an IPA anymore....but it WILL be a nice pale ale....

At some point, whether it is 3 or 6 or how many months, hop quality will start to dissipate. But if you are bottle conditioning you are still going to need a minimum of 3 weeks, if not more for the beer to carb and condition.

Revvy said:

+1

And an IPA will benefit just as much from any other style of beer from a month in some combination of all primary or primary + secondary, especially with dry hopping.

Basically the idea that and IPA needs to be consumend "young" really just means that if you stick your IPA in a bottle for a year and sample it, it won't be an IPA anymore....but it WILL be a nice pale ale....

At some point, whether it is 3 or 6 or how many months, hop quality will start to dissipate. But if you are bottle conditioning you are still going to need a minimum of 3 weeks, if not more for the beer to carb and condition.

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Ok, that makes sense. I think what I was thinking of is the hops losing their hoppiness as the beer ages.

sudbuster said:

Whoot!!! LMFAO. I'm sure Duvel and Unibroue are just chompng the bits
Their beers leave the breweries at about three months and spend 5 days in primary. It's hard to get a staff of microbioligists who know the pathways by heart from scientific evidence to give credince to a bunch homebrewers goofing around in their garages making preposterous judgements based on assumptions. And that includes a metalurgist amatuer brewer and his bud giving advice about brewing. IMO, no credentials, no listen to........

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Okay then I am interested in hearing about how commercial breweries get rid of all these things the yeast clean up. Is it through filtering, chemicals, process, or what?

osagedr said:

Okay then I am interested in hearing about how commercial breweries get rid of all these things the yeast clean up. Is it through filtering, chemicals, process, or what?

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Even THAT's been discussed ad nauseum on here lately because of Sam Caligone's show. Here's one of the threads. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/dogfish-head-brewmasters-2-weeks-ship-207721/?highlight=brewmasters

But there is about 4 others as well. There are a lot of things that the "big guys" are able to do or just do, that most homebrewers don't, like dialed in temp control, pitching enough yeast, and other things.....Some argue that just having a larger volume of beer fermenting is going to speed up the conditioning process.......Other's have cited simple economics as being the reasons the big guys have quicker turnover, and a few have cited commercial brewers that DO condition their beers....

Point being often what works for commercial breweries may not work, or be practical for the homebrewer, AND vice versa.

Thanks Revvy. I'll take a look at the thread you identified.

My beer usually is on the yeast for at least a few weeks, and in some cases several weeks. On the rare occasion it comes off the primary cake early, it's in the secondary for a long time on what usually turns out to be a decent cake in the carboy.

Newbeerguy said:

I toured the Great Lakes Brewery last month and I was told that they only leave their beer on the yeast 1 week for ales and 2 for lagers. I am unsure of other commercial breweries but that is their take on the matter.

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Got a private tour lined up for Jan 4th, starting the new year off right

biochemedic said:

Do you think this could just be perception? Does it really *prove* that you can "lager flavor out of an ale?" IE, do you just need to let the beer warm up so the aromas and flavors can represent themselves? Just think of that barleywine that you sip on for a half hour or more, and how the aromas and flavors change as it warms up in your snifter glass.... Perhaps ales are just meant to be consumed warmer, regardless of how they're stored? (I believe so...I generally drink my beer at my downstairs "room temp" of mid 60's *F.)
.

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..........I drank one of the "floral ales" one night after 3 days in my fridge. "FLAVORFUL" would have been in my review of the beer.

The next day, the one that had been in my dad's fridge would have inspired "Light American Lager" in the review, and I sipped it over an hour or so letting it warm up.

That is what "lagering" does, drop particles (many that contribute flavor) out of suspension. Nothing Magic about beer that is called "LAGER" by us humans.
The particles don't know what TF kind of beer they are in as they fall out.