At work (a North Yorkshire brewery) we skim (top crop) when we’re about to put the beer on chill to drop the yeast out and stop fermentation (approx day 4-5). The beer then gets transferred to CT before being racked to casks.
Thank you, HTH, very helpful. I would like to ask some questions below, and hope I'm not abusing your generosity. Getting some information from a practicing Northern England brewer basically geeks me out.
One thing I'm trying to figure out is Black Sheep's very gradual drop from fermentation temp of 20-21C down to 10C, over no less than 36 hours. They then hold here 2 days, and the brewer indicated, if I'm not mistaken, this is their diacetyl rest (puzzled by a drop in temp as a diacetyl rest, that's all). Excess yeast is removed, and it goes to a CT for 24-48 hours. They then rack to cask. They do mention yeast counts, both in the CT and when racked to cask. I don't know if these are counted in lab each time, or by sheer practice they can be confident of their counts at these stages?
The comment "excess yeast is removed" - would this be the harvest?
I was curious about this gradual drop, and to 10C at that. It doesn't seem they do any chill to encourage drop out. Do I understand it correctly? Any thoughts on this?
I imagine their CT is also at 10C. I know many breweries, like yours, if have it correctly, begin a secondary fermentation in the CT as they are closed. Not much, but some. Any issues with racking to cask, or are they filled on counterpressure?
I don't have a microscope and cannot count yeast. I'd like to rack without priming, just depend, as the Black Sheep brewer said, "we have plenty of residual sugar and yeast." Am I inviting broad inconsistency, or is their a protocol that might allow for this?
Finally, this involves more at the "pub" (my living room) than earlier at the "brewery" (my back yard - where today it's -6C now, -15C by tomorrow). Many suggestions to finish cask conditioning before fining. I imagine that means you remove the shive, fine, replace with a new shive, and roll the cask a bit. Is this correct? Is this waiting in order to ensure you have enough yeast in solution to do their conditioning job?
Thanks HTH, as usual. Hope I haven't drowned with questions.