Beer that ages well?

[bob1852]

crap, I've had a batch of Apfelwein sitting on it's yeast cake since I started the batch on March 7th....

might as well throw it out, eh?

 

[beerkrump]

Cue "I'll dispose of it response."

 

[Tonedef131]

Your first post never used the word 'years' or 'long term'. It was just 'doing nothing but autolyzing'. Again, the point of a lot of this is not the information, but that fact that you refrain from qualifying some of your comments.

You're probably right, but I didn't know that this was going to turn into the discussion that it did. I figured in a thread about aging beer I wouldn't have to quantify by saying "long term".

I should have just wrote that "the yeast are doing nothing OR autolysizing" instead of "the yeast are doing nothing BUT autolysizing" and we all could have saved a lot of typing. I didn't think I had to specify dormancy as the other thing yeast were doing, I figured it went without saying that the yeast went dormant.

crap, I've had a batch of Apfelwein sitting on it's yeast cake since I started the batch on March 7th....

might as well throw it out, eh?

Yeah, but because it's apple wine not because it's been on the cake that long.

 

[bob1852]

Yeah, but because it's apple wine not because it's been on the cake that long.

touche' my friend, touche'.....

the only reason I haven't bottled it yet is because I'm waiting till my Graff is done, and I don't want to waste bottles on Apfelwein

 

[Revvy]

Hell I just told zac I was never ever gonna bottle my beer ever again, and was just going to drink it out of primary with a straw...but then I thought, CRAP, there's yeast in there as well...so I guess I'm just gonna drink my wort straight from the boil kettle...



But then I read this...http://www.fossilfuelsbrewingco.com/

Amber Ale: Brewing Beer from 45-Million-Year-Old Yeast

Aw hell, you mean yeast can last for 45 million years and not Autloysize..and we can even make BEER??????

And maybe I can cellar MY beer just like the big guys?

Really???

Maybe I don't need to dump this godfersaken hobby afterall...

Maybe the yeasts AREN'T evil....

Only my LIVER is

(I have a shirt like that, btw......got it from the med students from one of their school sanctioned drinking binges.)

 

[yermej]

I said it earlier, but you said it better...autolysis is not the inevitable end of healthy yeast. It is the unnatural end that is a product of yeast health...like peritinitus or even cancer in us....it is an abberation....UNHEALTHY AND STRESSED yeast autolyse... but rarely do we have unhealthy yeast these days, most of the yeast we pitch is fresh...and unless we are making a huge beer, even underpitching will not NECESSARILY produce stressed out yeast. Or stressed out yeast that will automatically autlolyse....

Sorry if I've missed it, but do you have a reference stating that only unhealthy, stressed yeast autolyse? From my reading, yeast (healthy or not) dies and then, over time, autolysis occurs. As you said, there's a difference between dead and autolysed yeast, but from what I've read that difference seems to be time rather than health.

Also, yeast hulls are the cell walls after they have been partially degraded by autolysis and then separated from the remaining autolysis products.

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[flyangler18]

Fact: Yeast cells lyse, but this does not necessarily mean the meaty, vomit-inducing stench homebrewers have collectively defined it to be. Lysing is a biological certainty.

In lighter beer, this can assert itself as nuttiness or yeastiness that is out of character for the style.

For truly repugnant flavors and aromas to emerge, the yeast needs to be seriously abused by a number of compounding factors- hot fermentation temps, poor yeast health, underpitching by a huge margin, etc.

Can we please stop with the Lies Told To Children?

Noonan in New Brewing Lager Beer (pg 94):

In solutions lacking obtainable nutrients, the culture yeast will cease reproducing. When they can no longer sustain their own metabolic functions, albumin-, hemicellulose-, and vitamin-dissolving enzymes are activated, which reduce the yeast cell to amino acids and other simple substances. This autolyzation releases typical organic decomposition flavors into beer that is not racked off its sediment.

 

[broadbill]

And in the case of our own homebrew, in the Dec 07 Zymurgy Charlie Papazian reviewed bottles of homebrew going back to the first AHC competition that he had stored, and none of them went bad, some had not held up but most of them he felt were awesome...We're talking over 20 years worth of beers. And I can assure you he never mentioned the word autlolysis.

I think its ironic that CP didn't find any evidence of autolysis in those AHA samples, considering that his book is responsible for perpetuating the whole autolysis myth!

(in my opinion anyway, its the only source I've come across that specifically mentions it in any detail and concludes that it should be a source of concern for the homebrewer).

As far as I can tell, that is also where the whole "Rack to secondary the MINUTE fermentation slows down" theory comes from.

Maybe he has updated the information in subsequent editions of the book, and I haven't bother to go back to look (why when you have a resource like HBT?).

Don't get me wrong...its a great book, lots of good information and probably got maybe 90% of us into homebrewing, but did have put out there a few less-than-accurate ideas (HSA being another notable example).

...I'm going to take cover now...

 

[Schlenkerla]

Fact: Yeast cells lyse, but this does not necessarily mean the meaty, vomit-inducing stench homebrewers have collectively defined it to be.

In lighter beer, this can assert itself as nuttiness or yeastiness that is out of character for the style.

For truly repugnant flavors and aromas to emerge, the yeast needs to be seriously abused by a number of compounding factors- hot fermentation temps, poor yeast health, underpitching by a huge margin, etc.

Can we please stop with the Lies Told To Children?

True - One of the few places where this is common place is with Belgian style lambics made the old fashion way with cool ships. Many of the above things happen but they have 24 months if not longer to reconcile or remove the sickness thats prevalent in warm weather fermentation. Before it was accidental now just the way its done.

Some or all of these are involved and require nutrients to do their magic.

1. enterobactor
2. lactobacillus
3. oxidative yeasts - All 5 Bretts...
4. pediococcus
5. saccharomyces

Fricking Canibals!!

 

[Pith]

I'm bumping this old thread to remind everyone how much we love Revvy (read the entire thread; very entertaining), but also to ask a question. If we're only meant to have healthy yeast to prevent the likelihood of off-flavours or autolysis or whatever, why do we use dead yeast as nutrient?

I just made a starter to refresh my WB-06 (hefeweizen yeast) and early on in the fermentation of the starter, some of the yeast fell out of solution quite quickly, which I assumed that for such a lo-floc yeast meant that these were the dead ones. I assumed that the living yeast had munched on some of the retirees, which was why they were fizzing so pleasantly and smelling reasonably nice.

After crash-cooling, I poured the liquid off the yeast into another bottle. It didn't taste that nice, I assumed mainly because it was just fermented dry wheat malt extract with no hops or anything, and it didn't taste "off" or anything, just not as nice as the All-Grain Hefe I made with it. Obvious outcome, I know.

Just mainly getting it off my chest and making sure it's okay to pitch a vial of yeast with dead ones in it.