Yeast Cakes

May seem like a dumb question to some but why isn't there yeast cakes in big name brews just homebrews?

If you're referring to yeast in the bottles.... big breweries use much better equipment, filtering equipment, etc.

Homebrewers usually don't have access to or wish to pay for that sort of equipment.

commercial breweries filter the yeast out of the beer. some do bottle condition so you'll find yeast at the bottom of those bottles. many brews shipped from europe are pasteurized so you'll see yeast in the bottle but it will be dead.

mattne421 said:

May seem like a dumb question to some but why isn't there yeast cakes in big name brews just homebrews?

Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what your question is. If your question is, "why don't commercial beers produce a yeast cake during fermentation," the answer is they do. They produce huge yeast cakes. They simply drain the yeast from their large conicals, rinse, and re-use.

If, however, your question is "why is there a thin layer of yeast in a homebrew bottle and not in the Guinness or Bud Light that I buy," the answer is filtration. Most commercial breweries (although not all) will filter their beers using a micron filter, which will rid the beer of all remaining yeast. This eliminates the ability to naturally carbonate the beer, and the brewery uses forced carbonation (not unlike how we carbonate kegs) in orderto bottle.

Hope that answers your question.

It's also the reason that commercial brews that are filtered and/or pasteurized will only get worse with age. There are no active yeast to continue the conditioning.

Thanks. that makes sense. and yes i was referring to the thin layer of yeast at the bottom of bottles.