Yeast immobilization: magic beans of fermentation

[stromam]

If this works, I'm going back to my stir plate idea for primary fermentation since I won't have to fight the fallen yeast. Since I'm under positive pressure constantly, I wouldn't have the O2 going into the fermenting beer like in a starter to worry about and it would move the beer around the beads for greater yeast to beer contact. I'm in a Sanke so I plan on side wall stir bar agitation with a more spherical type of stir bar. My thoughts go to containing the beads in larger tea balls so they don't have any possibility of going into my dip tube when transferring to my serving keg.

One question that I am worrying about if this works: What about lagers? For ales floating beads is great since they are at the top, but what about bottom fermenting yeast strains? Would circulating via stir bar overcome this no matter the strain, or would you have to contain or sink the beads for lager?

Man this is a great experiment and I can't wait to see when tasting comes into the equation.

Someone may have answered this already, but it isn't the fact that lager strains sit on the bottom that make them lagers. They are just a different strain of yeast that ferment at lower temperature. That lower temperature fermentation means slower fermentation and the yeast cells don't get caught up as much in the rising CO2 so they tend to sit on the bottom. It really doesn't matter where the yeast is located in the wort.

In other words the "top fermenting"/"bottom fermenting" is only a function of temperature, you can use a lager yeast as a top fermenting if you crank up the temperature and an ale strain as a bottom fermenting if you turn it down, the strains have just been "optimized" to do one or the other.

 

[ox45]

First off, this is great! I am a mead maker by hobby, so I have decided to use this and another experiment utilizing ale yeasts in mead to try and find a quick turnaround mead recipe.
My question is since these immobilized yeast have already grown and multiplication is now stopped, would I still need to add nutrients to the must? I'm pretty sure the yeast utilizes the nutrients to multiply, so I'm assuming you would not need them?

 

[Accidic]

I thought they burned through some of the trace nutrients not just while multiplying but also while fermenting? Still an interesting idea though.

 

[MalFet]

First off, this is great! I am a mead maker by hobby, so I have decided to use this and another experiment utilizing ale yeasts in mead to try and find a quick turnaround mead recipe.
My question is since these immobilized yeast have already grown and multiplication is now stopped, would I still need to add nutrients to the must? I'm pretty sure the yeast utilizes the nutrients to multiply, so I'm assuming you would not need them?

Interesting question!

I'm not a mead-maker, but yeast need nutrients for more than just cell division. I'm not sure what they would or wouldn't be able to get from the honey.

 

[ox45]

Well honey is a great source of ferment-able sugars, but a terrible source of nutrients. So I decided to go ahead and put some in the must like I usually would.

So far I must say that this experiment is going incredibly well. I was worried at first since the yeast balls all floated on top and didn't seem fully submerged in the must. But the gravity readings are showing that this is working well!

I put the mead together on 6/26. It started with a OG of 1.087, and I made a slurry of about 300-350 billion cells of Trappist 3787 (due to another experiment on ale yeasts in mead). I measured this morning and the SG is now down to 1.016. This is an incredible rate for mead, much more so than my normal batches done the traditional way. It may be due to the fact that I probably overpitched with that many cells, but I do not taste any of the usual symptoms of overpitching.

I built a stir plate to try and move the must around, so that the beads are not just sitting stagnant on top. But my LHBS was out of stir bars so I had to order online. It looks like at this rate the mead may be done before that arrives! This could be huge for wine and mead makers since clearing can, and usually does, take weeks or months!

 

[MalFet]

Well honey is a great source of ferment-able sugars, but a terrible source of nutrients. So I decided to go ahead and put some in the must like I usually would.

So far I must say that this experiment is going incredibly well. I was worried at first since the yeast balls all floated on top and didn't seem fully submerged in the must. But the gravity readings are showing that this is working well!

I put the mead together on 6/26. It started with a OG of 1.087, and I made a slurry of about 300-350 billion cells of Trappist 3787 (due to another experiment on ale yeasts in mead). I measured this morning and the SG is now down to 1.016. This is an incredible rate for mead, much more so than my normal batches done the traditional way. It may be due to the fact that I probably overpitched with that many cells, but I do not taste any of the usual symptoms of overpitching.

I built a stir plate to try and move the must around, so that the beads are not just sitting stagnant on top. But my LHBS was out of stir bars so I had to order online. It looks like at this rate the mead may be done before that arrives! This could be huge for wine and mead makers since clearing can, and usually does, take weeks or months!

That's awesome!

I'm still a long way from decided on how useful this is for beer (or, more accurately, whether the flavor profile is undisturbed enough for the benefits to be worth it), but I'm thrilled that this is working so well for mead.

This should demonstrate my ignorance about meads, but anyway: is yeast character usually desirable in meads? Or do people typically go for clean ferments across the board?

 

[ox45]

The wine yeasts definitely do impart different flavors. For example some prefer to use something like D47 or KV1-1122 for a melomel (fruit mead), or EC-1118 for traditionals.

With the results I have seen so far, I absolutely plan on trying more experiments for other types. But for this one, I am looking strictly to find a way to make a traditional mead that is drinkable in the quickest time. Loveofrose did an experiment on gotmead.com using ale yeasts to see if they would be drinkable quicker than wine yeasts. It was found that the Trappist 3787 produced a very drinkable mead in the shortest time. My goal here is to produce something that is quaffable in a month or so while I wait the year for the regular meads to age.

The biggest bonus I can see with this method is that I can pull the beads out when the mead hits the sweetness level I want. The usual process I follow for meads is to let it dry out completely and let the yeast drop. I then rack and stabilize. Once I'm sure its stable, I will backsweeten with honey which clouds it up again. With this, I will customize the SG for the ABV and residual sweetness I want and just pull the beads. That way it will only have to clear the one time and I am drinking it quickly without the losses of multiple rackings.

 

[LandoAllen]

Has anyone tried this with cider yet to see if the cider can be left sweet once the beads are extracted?

 

[ox45]

Well disappointing news. I checked on the mead when I got home and there is what appears to be a layer of yeast on the bottom of the carboy. It's not much, but it shows that some yeast budded off and multiplied which means I can't just pull the beads to stop fermentation.

The pic looks worse than it is. That layer is really thin, but its still what appears to be active yeast. Now to figure out how to really trap the yeast in the balls.

One thing of note is the ferment speed. I'm wondering if the yeast in suspension do not realize the yeast encapsulated and therefore there is more yeast overall. I know a drop from 1.080 to 1.016 in a few days isn't too uncommon for beer, but it's pretty dramatic for mead/wine.

 

[brant740]

Did you clean the yeast balls before using them? Do you think there could have been some hitchhikers on the balls that caused the yeast cake?

 

[nutty_gnome]

Did you clean the yeast balls before using them? Do you think there could have been some hitchhikers on the balls that caused the yeast cake?

So many STD jokes and 'thats what she said' jokes come to mind that I am overloaded. Must shut down till tomorrow, N_G.

 

[ox45]

So many STD jokes and 'thats what she said' jokes come to mind that I am overloaded. Must shut down till tomorrow, N_G.

Haha you know we all thought that.

I rinsed them off and stored them in distilled water. It is always possible that a few stray cells made it through. I am going to try a few new methods in the upcoming weeks. I am going to try reverse spherification since I still have a bunch of the chemicals left over. The theory on this is that the outer jelly layer should not contain yeast, so therefore none should bud off of it.

I'm also trying dialysis tubing to really make sure no yeast get loose!

 

[brant740]

Reverse spherification sounds cool. Maybe you could use it to put a coat on your existing beads.

 

[ox45]

Not sure if that would work or not, besides yeast is cheap enough to try another experiment. Plus I have a bunch of pipettes coming that will hopefully allow me to make a lot smaller spheres than the ones I have now.

 

[whitehause]

Wheew....just read through the whole thread. Possibly the most insightful thread I've read.(not to mention totally freakin awesome!)

First off....Thank you MalFet for all you've done. It's really above and beyond

It might be a little early in the testing phase, but has anyone gotten a sense of how many batches will be possible with one good set of balls(had to do it). I would love to do this with some of my cultured yeast ( Bell's, Conan, Packman, ect ) but not if I'm only going to get a couple of batches. Also, what is the best storage, and how do they hold up?

 

[brant740]

well we know they can work 4000 hours continuously according to http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e0a.htm

Also talks about flash fermentation...hmmm

 

[whitehause]

well we know they can work 4000 hours continuously according to http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e0a.htm

Also talks about flash fermentation...hmmm

Pretty good read. They talk about continuous fermentation, so I wonder how well the start and stop of our fermentation will work. If they would really last for 4000 hrs, this is now my go to yeast method. Better yet, if they would hold up to freezing in glycerine this might be the holy grail of clean fermentation where the yeast character isn't that important.

Ok...gota go order some supplies and start testing.

BTW.... Ball brand (like the canning jars) sells a product called pickle crisp. It's food grade calcium chloride and many grocery stores carry it cheap.

 

[Bsquared]

So, Ive browsed this thread in the past, but must admit I've not read the whole thing...But, has any one discussed using immobilized yeast in a filter housing to condition beer after primary fermentation? I'm thinking if you has a column of immobilized yeast in a filter housing, then passed a green beer over that filter, you could effectively remove diacetyl and or acetaldehyde from the beer. Has this topic come up?

 

[brant740]

Yes, Wortmonger brought this up and suggested this might be the method BMC uses for advanced maturation. He said he might try this with his pressurized fermentation setup but I dont think he has posted anything about that since.

I was thinking, like you suggested, to start in primary for 2 days then recirculate through the beads in a pressurized system to finish it up. Since then people have added mead into the equation but I dont know enough about the aging process to know if this could cut down the amount of time it needs to age.

 

[JFK]

I am fascinated by the possibilities here. I am sad to see that MalFet will not be able to do more experimentation for a very prolonged period. I am going to have to give this a go... Revvy expect a call real soon with a great/bad idea to do a ton of experiments with this. For mead making alone this would potentially cut out.... oh wait a YEAR+ of aging or at least a large amount of the aging time. I have concerns and also high hopes. the shelf life while not being used to ferment is one of them as I don't brew consistently year round I tend to have a month of down time here and there and sometimes prolonged down time. When I get around to doing this I will do some freezing experiments with them using glycerol solutions. 5am.... to early to call Revvy and tell him I just volunteered him to be my Robin in this dynamic duo adventure with yeast trapped in time. I think with the right mixture of glycerol these babies could be frozen long term.. my only concern is will there be a chemical reaction between the chemicals used to make the balls and the glycerol? I know one of you is a chemist TELL ME PLEASE I LOVE YOU... and the nonserious question who will be the arch enemy in this Batman movie....

 

[DrunkleJon]

JFK, don't you realize that you already have the best archenemy of all time when it comes to brewing? Impatience. That is the mastermind behind all of the "Is it beer yet?" threads, and we brewers fight with it all the time.

 

[hethacker12]

Woo! took 4 days, but i finished this thread.
Malfet, Props for all of the info and for everyone else contributing.
I am going to try this out as soon as possible.

Also, Ox45 I was curious about that layer at the bottom of the mead, is it possible that it is the excess nutrients added to the must? or perhaps it could be the waste from the yeast cells but not necessarily the yeast cells themselves?

 

[DerrangedPOJO]

Gr8t stuff!

 

[whitehause]

OK.....got my sodium alginate on Sat. and already had a brand new jar of pickle crisp(calcium chloride). I made up some Amaretto balls for the wife ( just to keep her interested ) and so I could try some mixing ratios and dripping technique. I'm doing a starter this week with my Bell's yeast, so my first experiment will be to spherify and freeze some of that starter. I'm thinking about just putting the balls in glycerin and seeing if the will be enough to protect them. I'm not sure what adding it to the yeast/alginate mixture would do, but JFK looks like he is going to try that.

Updates to follow.

 

[brant740]

2 questions about yeast preservation.

1) is immobilized yeast at risk when refrigerated? Seems like we could store indefinitely in water as we don't have to worry about them reproducing.

2) would they be shelf stable at room temp in a sealed jar with water? since there would be no food wouldn't they go dormant?

 

[whitehause]

2 questions about yeast preservation.

1) is immobilized yeast at risk when refrigerated? Seems like we could store indefinitely in water as we don't have to worry about them reproducing.

2) would they be shelf stable at room temp in a sealed jar with water? since there would be no food wouldn't they go dormant?

Liquid yeast breaks down after time weather they have food or not. I'm not sure if being encased in the alginate will slow this process or not. If they hold up to freezing, it will solve the problem.

 

[chad_]

Great thread, I like all the positive results. I wish I could help out in experimenting. I'm curious as to how many beers one set could produce as well as how well they work with ciders!

 

[whitehause]

Great thread, I like all the positive results. I wish I could help out in experimenting. I'm curious as to how many beers one set could produce as well as how well they work with ciders!

There was a link posted earlier that showed 4000hrs continuous fermentation. I'm not sure what effect ferment/store/ferment/store that we as home brewers will do to the longevity though.

 

[chad_]

There was a link posted earlier that showed 4000hrs continuous fermentation. I'm not sure what effect ferment/store/ferment/store that we as home brewers will do to the longevity though.

I had seen that. I'd assume that if they could handle at least 5 to day fermentations. Thats only 1200 hours. But I am not sure if stopping them from fermenting and storing them would hurt them or not.

 

[whitehause]

I had seen that. I'd assume that if they could handle at least 5 to day fermentations. Thats only 1200 hours. But I am not sure if stopping them from fermenting and storing them would hurt them or not.

I'm not sure I follow what your saying.
Did you mean 5 two day ferments or fermenting 5 days twice?

If it's 5 two day ferments, that's only 240 hours.
if two 5 day ferments that's still only 240 hours.

4000 hours is a little over 166 days, so that's a lot of brewing

 

[Cromwell]

Ugh. Now I have to spherify everything I can think of.

 

[jason_g]

I was a cook for a while and one of the chefs I worked for taught me how to use sodium alginate to make beer caviar. .. this is a neat experiment I will be watching

 

[Hermit]

I was a cook for a while and one of the chefs I worked for taught me how to use sodium alginate to make beer caviar. .. this is a neat experiment I will be watching

I didn't know cows laid thousands of tiny little eggs....

 

[emjay]

I didn't know cows laid thousands of tiny little eggs....

Beer, dammit!

 

[brant740]

Any updates?

 

[Radegast]

Any updates?

The yeast escaped containment. No signs of survivors. The yeast have taken over the whole facility.

 

[hunter_le five]

The yeast escaped containment. No signs of survivors. The yeast have taken over the whole facility.

Ha!

 

[GrogNerd]

.

 

[DrunkleJon]

View attachment 166510
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Dont dead open inside? I dont get it. Ohhhhh. I read that wrong. I probably would be one of the first to die off in the zombie apocalypse.

 

[MalFet]

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Though the alginate beads did indeed became sentient, human casualties we're were within acceptable levels. The work must go on!

(Sadly, the real story is a lot less interesting. I'm out of the country for a few years and all my gear is in a storage locker miles away. If others have tried this, I hope they'll post back with results!)