I recently did ten gallons of my house bitter.
I used:
20# 2-row
2# honey malt
1# crystal 20
1 qt of yeast starter made from washed 1968 (london ESB)
1 oz citra
I have noticed when tasted side by side the bottle conditioned 5 gal tastes much cleaner than the 5 gal that went into the corny and straight into the kegerator. I had been planning on doing something like this for a while with this yeast.
I think they both taste good. The kegged half has the expected malt/hops profile just like the bottle. The keg though, has that butterscotch nose and the bottle doesn't. My investigation points to the very obvious difference in temperature while finishing the secondary process. The bottles were left to do their thing in the bath tub about 73F and as previously stated the keg went into the 34F temp zone(I have a temp controller). I read a lot about the usefulness/necessity of the diacetyl rest and thought this could shed some light on it for those with the same curiosity.
My experience and understanding is that most of the english yeasts have a habit of floculating in the medium to high range. What also happens is during fermentation it's not actually diacetyl but the precursor chemical that is then oxidized into diacetyl ((see "Home Brewer's Answer Book" by Ashton Lewis) a great toilet read by the way). Most brewers use a warmer fermentation or one of increased length to give the yeast time to clean up diacetyl in the beer. The yeasts that have a high floculation property settle to the bottom of the fermenter before having a chance to clean this flavor chemical up. I think Wyeast says 1968 is medium low but I like it anyway.
My theory is the secondary fermentation that occurred at room temperature and the subsequent rest enabled the yeast to produce a "cleaner" product in terms of diacetyl while the batch that went into the kegerator was essentially cold crashed and left with noticable diacetyl.
Yes I know it's not traditional. Let's try not to get hung up on the little things and focus on the fact that I'm providing this information as a way to side step the people that feel it necessary to provide info irrelevant to the topic being specifically posted or to hijack the thread. This recipe does however comply with the guidelines set forth by the AHA. As with all my beers I brew them to these so I have a reasonable starting point.
I used:
20# 2-row
2# honey malt
1# crystal 20
1 qt of yeast starter made from washed 1968 (london ESB)
1 oz citra
I have noticed when tasted side by side the bottle conditioned 5 gal tastes much cleaner than the 5 gal that went into the corny and straight into the kegerator. I had been planning on doing something like this for a while with this yeast.
I think they both taste good. The kegged half has the expected malt/hops profile just like the bottle. The keg though, has that butterscotch nose and the bottle doesn't. My investigation points to the very obvious difference in temperature while finishing the secondary process. The bottles were left to do their thing in the bath tub about 73F and as previously stated the keg went into the 34F temp zone(I have a temp controller). I read a lot about the usefulness/necessity of the diacetyl rest and thought this could shed some light on it for those with the same curiosity.
My experience and understanding is that most of the english yeasts have a habit of floculating in the medium to high range. What also happens is during fermentation it's not actually diacetyl but the precursor chemical that is then oxidized into diacetyl ((see "Home Brewer's Answer Book" by Ashton Lewis) a great toilet read by the way). Most brewers use a warmer fermentation or one of increased length to give the yeast time to clean up diacetyl in the beer. The yeasts that have a high floculation property settle to the bottom of the fermenter before having a chance to clean this flavor chemical up. I think Wyeast says 1968 is medium low but I like it anyway.
My theory is the secondary fermentation that occurred at room temperature and the subsequent rest enabled the yeast to produce a "cleaner" product in terms of diacetyl while the batch that went into the kegerator was essentially cold crashed and left with noticable diacetyl.
Yes I know it's not traditional. Let's try not to get hung up on the little things and focus on the fact that I'm providing this information as a way to side step the people that feel it necessary to provide info irrelevant to the topic being specifically posted or to hijack the thread. This recipe does however comply with the guidelines set forth by the AHA. As with all my beers I brew them to these so I have a reasonable starting point.