What Does It Mean to Beat the Yeast Back into the Beer?

What does it mean and how do you beat the yeast back into the beer?
From Scotch Ale by Gregory Noonan:

The Alt strain #1338 from Wyeast gives a very appropriate character, but will probably need to be beat back into the beer in order to ferment the strong ales down to their target final gravities.

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The late Greg Noonan was a lagering saint, but this one smells a bit of old myth. I haven't had the need, ever, to agitate a yeast in order to force it to complete fermentation.

Pitch an appropriate amount of yeast for a big beer and you won't need to beat anything. Boy, I feel like a brewing god is looking down at me now. I'm doomed (?)

It just means to agitate the yeast that have settled out so that they can do more work rather than being trapped under other yeast.

klyph said:

It just means to agitate the yeast that have settled out so that they can do more work rather than being trapped under other yeast.

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How would you do that? Vigorously swirling the primary fermenter? Do you take the air lock off? How often?

beartooth91 said:

How would you do that? Vigorously swirling the primary fermenter? Do you take the air lock off? How often?

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I sure as heck wouldn't do anything of the sort. Sorry but like "passed" saind that is something that should be left to the mists and myths of time. You really don't want to agitate your beer further after fermentation has started unless you like the taste of wet cardboard. You run the risk introducing too much oxygen (especially if you took the airlock off) to the beer, which will cause the beer to oxydize and stale.

Especially in lagers, where the slightest off flavor is detectable, do you really want to risk this? It is just better to insure there is enough yeast to do the job, add enough oxygen at pitch time, and let the yeast do it's job unmolested.

Even if his advice had some merit, back when it was written, which is highly suspect in this instance. Yeast is much better these days for the most part and doesn't need us really to fiddle with it.

It sounds like it's talking about true top cropping yeasts. If a good percentage of the yeast is riding on top of the beer I could see breaking it up so it would fall back down. But I don't think there is really any true top cropping yeast still around.

PT Ray said:

It sounds like it's talking about true top cropping yeasts. If a good percentage of the yeast is riding on top of the beer I could see breaking it up so it would fall back down. But I don't think there is really any true top cropping yeast still around.

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Oh! You might be right there. That would make sense.