Does any serious brewer use Malic, Tartaric, Citric or Acetic acids?

[cire]

It obviously would have been better still had you simply said "Please post a picture of your beer" to which I probably would have responded "What has that got to do with what I am talking about?" But as you want to see a picture of my beer here it is:

Now how does this contribute to the discussion? What does it illustrate other than that it is possible for a home brewer to make an appealing looking beer? Yes presentation is important (as Charlie Bamforth says "We drink with out eyes") but there's lots more to a beer than how it looks. This was brewed with very soft (RO + a bit of CaCl2, ~0 sulfate, ~0 alkalinity) water using a triple decoction mash, the Budvar pilsner strain, and fermented in the traditional way (no diacetyl rest, no crash, long lagering).

That looks a very good beer regardless of being in an ale glass and by a traditional lager manufacturing process. That yeast strain might even be one isolated by Hanson in Copenhagen in the laboratory of Jacobsen's brewery named after son Carl. The ingredients might not have been exactly those from earlier times, but feel sure they would be selected fr the process used. I'm sure you have much advice to offer to other brewers producing that style.

I’ve toyed with high mineralization in my beers and ultimately came to the conclusion that it doesn’t benefit beer flavor.

But then I feel there could be some merit to mineralization when the alternative is an unacceptable pH. Maybe this is the best alternative in that case?

I do suggest that our British cohorts consider exploring modest mineralization along with proper pH control to see if the lack of crunchiness is worth the improved perceptions of malt and hops. I found that it is.

Yes, I hear that and you are not alone in expressing that opinion, but from my own experience I'd really like to know why?

Lagering is a common process for clarifying beer, but has been very largely obsolete in British Ale brewing for several generations. Before Pasteur beer was brewed mostly in cold periods and therefore stored for long periods, kept sound by its alcohol content, to supply demands over the whole year. After Pasteur's work breweries were kept clean and brewing was possible through all seasons, aided by the introduction of refrigeration. British malts towards the end of the nineteen the century did have less nitrogen content than most other European and, I am informed, all North American barleys. There were however barleys grown in some parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa that had very low nitrogen content and were also capable of producing high level of extract. The story in the history of Arthur Soames Maltings at Grimsby, but briefly, their produce made beers that dropped cleared in fewer days that with other malts might take months. So I wonder if we talk at cross purposes with your beers made from different ingredients to have the experience you express?

British brewers have at times included so called Califonian barley malt (6 row) for its superior content of enzymes allowing flaked maize in the mash to reduce protein content as well as many other ways to keep British ales clear, including of course, sufficient calcium in the brewing liquor. Now British barleys have been bred and kilned for lower nitrogen and extra enzymes as well as high extract potential. Even so with low levels of calcium the beers they make take longer to clear and don't taste as good.

Almost in parallel with my beer shown earlier, which was clear enough and tasting good with a week of being casked, I brewed another with the same water profile except with other malts of lower grade. Even though no high nitrogen adjucts were added as in the one shown, flaked maize and invert sugar from Ragus, after a month it still has a haze and I'm not sure how longer it will need. My latest brew was with Maris Otter, flaked maize and invert with a calcium level of 134ppm. At the moment the jury is still out with this one, it's on the cusp but proves the importance of calcium in ales for clarity, taste might be different, but I'd need to drink other peoples beer knowing how they were made before I might change my view.

It couldn't be that American brewing is out on the limb, could it?

https://carlsberggroup.com/products/jacobsen/jacobsen-original-dark-lager/

 

[ajdelange]

That looks a very good beer regardless of being in an ale glass and by a traditional lager manufacturing process.

It looks appealing for sure and I wish I had one in front of me right now but that's because I remember how good that beer was - not that it looks nice in the picture. And we must remember that the software used to produce jpegs increases saturation as people like "Kodak" color rather than true color in their photos. This is especially true of the processing used in smart phones. You can't tell a single thing about the beers organoleptic properties from the picture.

That yeast strain might even be one isolated by Hanson in Copenhagen...

Well it's possible I suppose if it is indeed the Budvar strain. I sometimes use the PU strain as well and really have no idea as to which it might be in this picture. In any case, as the yeast have clearly dropped they have nothing to do with the appearance of the beer at this point.

...in the laboratory of Jacobsen's brewery named after son Carl.

As Hansen (note spelling) didn't achieve isolation of yeast until 1883 and the Burgerliches Brauhaus had been in operation since 1842 PU's yeast couldn't have been Hansen's. The charming story about the rengade monk is untrue. Groll bought the yeast he originally used. The history of the Budvar yeast is less clear. Based on the timescale it could have been Hansen's but I'll opine that given it's unique flavor profile it probably wasn't. But again it's irrelevant here. Whenever the Carlsberg Lab is mentioned, and this is also, of course, irrelavent, I like to remind brewers that S.P.L. Sorensen (creator of the pH concept) was director there for many years.

The ingredients might not have been exactly those from earlier times, but feel sure they would be selected fr the process used.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

I’ve toyed with high mineralization in my beers and ultimately came to the conclusion that it doesn’t benefit beer flavor.

Yes, I hear that and you are not alone in expressing that opinion, but from my own experience I'd really like to know why?

You have become an evangelist for a particular type of beer. The only problem with evangelists is that they often forget that not everyone follows their particular faiths. The very simple reason Martin does not find high mineralization beneficial is because he does not like what he tastes when he brews beers using it. He is not a member of your church. And most people aren't either. The rest of the world considers Brtitish Ales (brewed in this traditional style) to be somewhat eccentric. Some in the States are as enthusiastic about them as you are but they are relatively few. I honestly think most of them are as much charmed by the paraphernalia (engines, sparklers, taps, spiles (hard and soft), ash mallets, stillage, firkins, pins...) as by the beer. I'll go out on a limb and guess that most people (commercial or home) who brew these beers do not mineralize to the extent that you extol. We have the opinions of Martin, Yooper and MSK (and mine too, I suppose) on this here. That's a pretty small sample for sure but it seems, from what I sense, to be representative.

None of this is meant to dampen your enthusiasm for this style or tell you that you should reduce your mineralization or stop trying to convince the rest of the world that these are the best beers there are but you need to appreciate that you may be working into an impedance mismatch. bitterdown is right that people who have found this discourse interesting should try brewing in the way you recommend to see if they like the results. I have pointed out here by adding salts to finished beer one can get a sense, at least, of how these salts effect the flavors.

It couldn't be that American brewing is out on the limb, could it?

Most of it isn't. The megas and regionals continue to largely brew the same insipid (IMO) lagers that most Americans (and the rest of the world) prefer. The brewpubs still have but a tiny share of the market but tend to produce, at least, initially ales, because they don't have the equipment to do lagers. But the meaning of 'lagering' is different now than it was in the days when it meant 3 months in a cave in the alps. With the modern processes (diacetyl rest, crash, centrifugation) it is possible to produce lager in a week. I well remember one brewery in Australia whose regular lager was cold conditioned for a week and the premium version of it for 2. Beers made this way are not as good as ones made in the traditional way but who, of the younger people who drink the most beer, remember what the traditional beers tasted like?

But some segments of the industry, and home brewers, of course, go way out on a limb. If it can be defines as beer, someone has brewed it. We celebrate this willingness to try new and even sometimes strange things (Gose).

 

[user 246304]

The rest of the world considers Brtitish Ales (brewed in this traditional style) to be somewhat eccentric. Some in the States are as enthusiastic about them as you are but they are relatively few. I honestly think most of them are as much charmed by the paraphernalia (engines, sparklers, taps, spiles (hard and soft), ash mallets, stillage, firkins, pins...) as by the beer.

Whoa! British ales eccentric, with a sort of wacky few only being enthusiastic about them and the tradition they come from? It's all about the toys, associated with real ales, and not the ales themselves? Right now, I think, there's what, something like a dozen real ale festivals going strong in the United States? And when I was part of the scene, Chicago, it was simply an insane foamstand of devotees. I cannot understand at all this diminution of either the British palate in alemaking, or those who would follow it to other shores.

AJ, I have immense respect for you but I'll say it flatly. If anyone is evangelizing, I think you might do well to take a look inwards. I grant I've been out of touch, and given a maddening disease that robs me of cognition and memory, I may seem like an idiot and a naif, but I did come from craft brewing and I can tell you that my experience was quite the opposite of yours. Traditional British brewing was (and is, from all I can tell) held in the highest regard, British malts, British hops and British yeasts were the essence of what we, almost to a man (meaning, I had friends in large craft breweries, sprinkled across the states) all I knew, what we worked with, and I could be wrong but I believe "burtonizing" is still as robust as it's ever been as a treatment.

I love lagers, too, and find them wonderful to make. I do not find ales "easier" relative to lagers, as you also mentioned, nor do I dislike either body of beers - I love them both. I love ales for a ton of reasons, don't disdain lagers any the more (nor the people who make them). Seems this is a huge world with ample room to learn in any direction we drink. And tilt.

 

[MSK_Chess]

My process isn't exactly conventional but here goes. I make 50 gal (US) batches using RO water to which only a little (35 grams in 50 gal or so) calcium chloride has been added. The chilled wort has oxygen and yeast injected in line as it passes to a cylindroconical fermenter. An RTD in the beer (thermowell) turns a pump on and off to maintain the beer temperature at whatever is set into the controller (deadband). I usually ferment at 48 - 50 °F. When within a degree or so of terminal gravity I spund and start lowering the controller temperature a couple of degrees per day. When I approach freezing I hold for a couple of weeks. At that point I fill into Sanke kegs. Because the chill bands are in operation right through transfer to kegs there are vertical currents maintained in the conical which keeps a fair amount of yeast in suspension. These go into a walk-in that's held between 30 and 40 °F. The kegs sit in the walk in until it is consumed either through faucets on the outside wall of the walk in or by decanting to another keg. So how long is the beer lagered? The first pints are lagered a day. The last ones as much as a couple of years! One of the most interesting things about this is that as pints are drawn off and consumed over time one sees how the beer changes and one of the most fascinating things about the change history is that the beers stay pretty stinky for a couple of weeks and then the jungbuket disappears almost over night. I'd say that in general it is at its best in the first year and then gradually the hops start to fade and a bit of diacetyl starts to creep in. The 'secret' to all this is, of course, that the beer is sitting undisturbed on the yeast. Eventually they run out of steam and are thus no longer able to scavenge diacetyl. Where the acetolactate is coming from at that point I don't know. My guess is that has been there all along but that any diacetyl produced from it is reduced by the yeast as long as they are alive.


I've had a lot of pilsners on the continent and trying to think back (its been several years) I would have to say that I think most of them were served in the 300 mL Pilstulpe (Pilsner Tulip). So if I want to be traditional I'll drink it from one of those or from what most Americans think of as being the traditional pilsner glass - the inverted cone but often from the glass closest to the taps which in the case of this photo was a dimple.

I found that picture on my i-Phone. I don't know why I took it - probably to record that head. I have seen it explained that the traditional glide down to freezing is responsible for these meringue heads and that you can't expect to get them with a diacetyl rest and crash. I don't know whether that is true or not. I only wish I could get them to last longer!

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=RHh45U78&id=FD597B599551986B3EABB278B41E4E19A2DDB583&thid=OIP.RHh45U7861Gnyp67OFeIvQHaHa&mediaurl=http://www.drinkstuff.com/productimg/84673_large.jpg&exph=600&expw=600&q=pilsner+tulip&simid=608025160633486420&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

Its rather quite interesting. 50 gallon US is the largest home brewery I think i have ever heard of. I do think its important not to thermally 'shock', the yeast into inactivity for as you admirably demonstrate we still want it to be doing something for us. I have a rather strange question, not something that one asks every day. What do you think would happen to beer/lager if it was filtered through a resin usually employed to deionise water?

 

[MSK_Chess]

Whoa! British ales eccentric, with a sort of wacky few only being enthusiastic about them and the tradition they come from? It's all about the toys, associated with real ales, and not the ales themselves? Right now, I think, there's what, something like a dozen real ale festivals going strong in the United States? And when I was part of the scene, Chicago, it was simply an insane foamstand of devotees. I cannot understand at all this diminution of either the British palate in alemaking, or those who would follow it to other shores.

AJ, I have immense respect for you but I'll say it flatly. If anyone is evangelizing, I think you might do well to take a look inwards. I grant I've been out of touch, and given a maddening disease that robs me of cognition and memory, I may seem like an idiot and a naif, but I did come from craft brewing and I can tell you that my experience was quite the opposite of yours. Traditional British brewing was (and is, from all I can tell) held in the highest regard, British malts, British hops and British yeasts were the essence of what we, almost to a man (meaning, I had friends in large craft breweries, sprinkled across the states) all I knew, what we worked with, and I could be wrong but I believe "burtonizing" is still as robust as it's ever been as a treatment.

I love lagers, too, and find them wonderful to make. I do not find ales "easier" relative to lagers, as you also mentioned, nor do I dislike either body of beers - I love them both. I love ales for a ton of reasons, don't disdain lagers any the more (nor the people who make them). Seems this is a huge world with ample room to learn in any direction we drink. And tilt.

I fermented WLP028 Edinburgh ale yeast as low as 13C, it produces a wonderfully clean finish, not as bland as WLP001 Californian and cleaner than the English strains WLP002 etc I have found Lagers to be more challenging, there is simply nowhere to hide and getting that clean malty finish is rather elusive.

 

[user 246304]

I've brewed a ton of lagers as well, and really enjoy them. This is memory, but at least several Munchen Helles, Dunkels, Bocks, Marzens variants. Never have done a pilsner, though, which would be fun. I have zero disdain for the lager palate, or skill required in making them - just happen to prefer British ales.

The "nowhere to hide" is the same thing I find in brewing an ordinary bitter of low OG, which is why I like drinking them whenever I can find one here, and in decent shape, beyond that.

 

[ajdelange]

Well obviously I am expressing an opinion here. I don't much like ales (except for wheat beers and Kölsches) and obviously that colors my thinking. I will readily admit that it is opinion and even use phrases like "..I sense to be representative". Lagers are indeed much harder to make in that there is no room for error - the slightest is easily detectable as the beers are so clean. When I spoke of relatively few (and I never said "wacky") being ale drinkers I was referring to the public in general - not just the brew pub crowd which is still a small segment of the worlds beer drinking population. Most of the beer sold in the world is lager.

When a brew pub opens it pretty much has to do ales as it doesn't usually have the capacity to do lagers. It doesn't have the tanks to lager in even if the lagering is relatively brief relative to tradition. It often does not have the chillers and jacketed fermenters required for these beers. I have seen some brewpubs attempt lagers usually with not so good results but there are exceptions with Gordon Biersch and Victory being outstanding examples in my area and I am sure there are others. So if you can't sell lagers you sell ales and if you are smart you try to convince your customers that ales are better than lager. You have to agree that a lot of the appeal of craft bewing (as shown in marketing) is that what is being sold to the consumer is somehow unique. Not what the hoi polloi drinks and if you have been around home brewers you have heard the term 'mega swill' tossed about. If one accepts that a beer produced by 'BudMilloors' is an acceptable beer it only proves that he doesn't know anything about beer. Thus the craft brewed product, which is almost all the time ale, must be better than what the hard hats drink and that's lager. Note that in the UK a ruffian is referred to as a "Lager Lout". Now I'm for all of this. I've been an investor in a couple of brewpubs and enthusiastically push the qualities of their beers but do understand something about brewing and a little about the market. I've been to 'Real Ale' festivals and competitions, judged in them, entered beers in them and lent them my beer engine. I do not disdain these beers by any means. I just don't like them that much. It's a matter of personal taste and it colors how I interpret the things I see and hear in the brewing world (not that I go out into that much any more).

WRT to evangelizing: In the first place I do not think there is anything wrong with evangelizing as long as one respects the guy on the soap box next to yours. In the second place I am NOT trying to convince anyone that lagers are better than ales. I have posted many times that one cannot use the term 'better' with out defining his optimality criterion. As an investor in a brewpub optimality means sales. By that criterion our brewer's ales are better than his lagers (in terms of taste his ales are still better than his lagers because he doesn't have the gear to do lager properly and won't accept that soft water is necessary). In comparing my own lagers to his ales (or my ales) in terms of taste the lagers are better. Whether they are perceived as such is a matter of personal taste. You might consider them insipid. If it appears I am evangelizing then I need to be more careful about how I write and caveat anything that might have a bit of opinion in it more clearly than I evidently do. Or perhaps I should just stick to titration curves and such.

I do know that lager is much harder to make for me than ale. With an ale I'm done in a couple of hours. With a lager it takes 14.

I like fiddling with taps and spiles and all that stuff and since I don't basically like the beers they are associated with that's where most of the appeal for me lies in them.

Hope this helps you to understand where I am coming from. Calling it as I see it. I could be all wrong about all of this, of course, but when one expresses an opinion there is always that risk. Sorry if I injured a sacred cow.

The only thing I am trying to sell is that people should consider all the information they have and make informed decisions based on it.

You are NOT an idiot or naif. Your experiences may very well have been quite distinct from mine. But that how it is. Not everyone goes to the same church, like the same music, has the same level of wealth or intelligence or has been as lucky as the other guy. This means that we are going to see things quite differently. Think about red states and blue states. This does not mean that we should not respect each others opinions. I respect yours and I ask you to respect mine or at least try to understand it. Ultimately, if course, you don't have to respect it at all.

I'd rather stick to discussion of acids. That what the OP really wanted to know about.

 

[user 246304]

It would be impossible for me not to respect you or anything you pose, AJ. You are patently orders of genius ahead of anything I could ever hope for in this world, and thanks for the considered thoughts. I'll bow out as rightly, as you said, the OP deserves his questions addressed. I hope I haven't soured the community, you, or this thread with anything I've said as I certainly do not mean to do that.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I don't mind lagers but I do like ales although I don't really like high gravity overtly bitter IPA's. My approach is to brew ales as low and clean as I can which includes both stouts and porters, pale ales etc and to treat them afterwards as one would a lager in most respects. I find it produces wonderfully flavoursome clean and enjoyable ales. I don’t use a lot of minerals and have been experimenting with biological acidification which I find produces a softer palate. Like AJ I do use spunding as a technique also as I find it gives a longer lasting creamier head.

 

[ajdelange]

What do you think would happen to beer/lager if it was filtered through a resin usually employed to deionise water?

If there were any yeast or protein globules in suspension I would expect them to gum up the resin pretty quicly. Were that not a problem I guess I would expect the resin to exchange whatever it is charged with for whatever it is supposed to pick up. IOW were it the resin used in the typical home softener I would expect it to pick up calcium and magnesium and replace them with sodium. Were it a resin designed to pick up any cation and replace it with H+ or any anion and replace with OH- I would expect it to do that.

 

[MSK_Chess]

If there were any yeast or protein globules in suspension I would expect them to gum up the resin pretty quicly. Were that not a problem I guess I would expect the resin to exchange whatever it is charged with for whatever it is supposed to pick up. IOW were it the resin used in the typical home softener I would expect it to pick up calcium and magnesium and replace them with sodium. Were it a resin designed to pick up any cation and replace it with H+ or any anion and replace with OH- I would expect it to do that.

ok, clearly i did not give you enough specifics.

Specifications
Brand 587
Sub Brand Tulsion
Matrix Structure Polystyrene Copolymer
Type Strong Acid, Strong Base mixture
Reversible Swelling NA %
Capacity eq/L 1.8 / 1.0 H+ / OH-
Water content - %
pH range 0-14
Ionic Form H+ / OH- form mixture
Temp max °C 80

Dimensions / Weights
Feature Intimate mixture of stong acid T-46 H+ form and strong base Type I (A-33) OH form in a 1:1:5 volume ratio.
Application For production of ultra pure water.

Ok essentially there are two things I would be interested in understanding. What would this do in a purely chemical sense and what you think it would do to the perception of the Ale/Lager as to clarity/taste. I understand that its partially speculation on your part but you are the brainiest person I have come across so far. Alternatively I might just have to employ the scientific method myself, run some through the resin and examine it for taste and clarity.

 

[ajdelange]

I think a test is definitely going to tell you more than I can.

The additional info tells me that it is the DI water type so it is intended to replace any cation with an H+ ion and any anion with an OH- and this is what it will do if it encounters a Ca++ ion or SO4-- in water. I would expect it to do the same in beer. But what about organic anions such as oxalate or acetate? That I am not so sure of. You could experiment with that obviously by running some dilute vinegar through. IOW I feel sure it will capture any small inorganic anion but not, perhaps, larger organic anions.

These resins are not intended to act as mechanical filters but as they are packed pretty close together they, of course, will filter particles of a certain size. How effective they are in a typical implementation against yeast as compared to, say, protein globules, I have no idea. Experiment, again, is, IMO the way to go.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I think a test is definitely going to tell you more than I can.

The additional info tells me that it is the DI water type so it is intended to replace any cation with an H+ ion and any anion with an OH- and this is what it will do if it encounters a Ca++ ion or SO4-- in water. I would expect it to do the same in beer. But what about organic anions such as oxalate or acetate? That I am not so sure of. You could experiment with that obviously by running some dilute vinegar through. IOW I feel sure it will capture any small inorganic anion but not, perhaps, larger organic anions.

These resins are not intended to act as mechanical filters but as they are packed pretty close together they, of course, will filter particles of a certain size. How effective they are in a typical implementation against yeast as compared to, say, protein globules, I have no idea. Experiment, again, is, IMO the way to go.

why thankyou kind sir, I will do just that!

These ruffians that you mention are indeed termed 'Lager louts' because they harbour a proclivity for the consumption of cheap mass produced Lagers. Sometimes they will mix these Lagers with what i think you know as 'hard cider', also cheap and industrially produced to create a potent concoction termed a 'snake bite'. The government to combat this banned drinking in public places, but much like prohibition, it failed as the said ruffians simply go underground, or rather, into the woods to consume it before emerging not a little inebriated, fully 'bullet proof' and ready to tackle the world. In my own family i have attempted to take the mystique from alcohol by encouraging drinking with meals, red wine with Italian style meals and beer with plain fare or spicey Indian curries for which its most suited. I think this approach has been fairly successful for the most part.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I think a test is definitely going to tell you more than I can.

The additional info tells me that it is the DI water type so it is intended to replace any cation with an H+ ion and any anion with an OH- and this is what it will do if it encounters a Ca++ ion or SO4-- in water. I would expect it to do the same in beer. But what about organic anions such as oxalate or acetate? That I am not so sure of. You could experiment with that obviously by running some dilute vinegar through. IOW I feel sure it will capture any small inorganic anion but not, perhaps, larger organic anions.

These resins are not intended to act as mechanical filters but as they are packed pretty close together they, of course, will filter particles of a certain size. How effective they are in a typical implementation against yeast as compared to, say, protein globules, I have no idea. Experiment, again, is, IMO the way to go.

well i conducted my experiment with completely unexpected results. Normally my tap water is roughly 6-7 pH depending on certain external parameters. When I filter it through the resin it takes it down to a pH of 5.6. My beer had a starting pH of 4.2 and when I ran it through the resin it shot up to a pH of 7.4 and tasted like it might have been bilge water. A most extraordinary state of affairs and completely unexpected.

Please can i ask something else for I have searched and can find no answer. How does calcium help yeast to flocculate. When I search for that all I can find is the statement 'a small amount of calcium helps yeast to flocculate', but there is never any explanation as to the mechanics. Many thanks in advance - Robbie.

P.S. Is it because a calcium ion is positively charged and yeast negatively charged on its surface and thus as they attract they combine they become heavier?

 

[ajdelange]

I guess I'm not surprised that the treated beer came out somewhat weird. I'm also not surprised the pH shifted but I expected that fewer anions would be absorbed than cations so that the pH would shift down. 180 out on that one!

Can't help much with flocculation. The exact mechanism of is apparently controversial but seems to involve the interaction of proteins on one cell with carbohydrate receptors on the other. Some strains will not floc without calcium present others will. From Brigg's et al Brewing Science and Practice: "The role of calcium is probably that of ensuring that the lectin-like protein is in the correct configuration for binding to the mannose receptors." That doesn't tell me a whole lot but perhaps it says volumes to a microbiologist.

 

[MSK_Chess]

I guess I'm not surprised that the treated beer came out somewhat weird. I'm also not surprised the pH shifted but I expected that fewer anions would be absorbed than cations so that the pH would shift down. 180 out on that one!

Can't help much with flocculation. The exact mechanism of is apparently controversial but seems to involve the interaction of proteins on one cell with carbohydrate receptors on the other. Some strains will not floc without calcium present others will. From Brigg's et al Brewing Science and Practice: "The role of calcium is probably that of ensuring that the lectin-like protein is in the correct configuration for binding to the mannose receptors." That doesn't tell me a whole lot but perhaps it says volumes to a microbiologist.

I know right, crazy result, but ok, some things are unexpected. Will continue to forage around for some insight into the role of calcium in helping yeast to flocculate, kind regards Robbie

Yeast cell aggregation.

A phenomenon of particular importance in brewing is flocculation. It is based on asexual cellular aggregation when cells adhere, reversibly, to one another, which leads to the formation of macroscopic flocs sedimenting out of suspension. Traditionally, brewing yeast strains are distinguished as highly flocculent bottom yeasts (used for lager or Pilsner fermentations) or weakly flocculent top yeasts (used for ale fermentations or, in Germany, to prepare top-fermented beers). Although flocculation is far from being completely understood, it appears that the phenomenon is due to specific cell wall lectins in yeast (so-called flocculins) surface glycoproteins capable of directly binding mannoproteins of adjacent cells. Yeast flocculation is genetically determined by the presence of different FLO genes. One such protein is Flo1p, a lectin-like cell-surface protein that aggregates cells into flocs by binding to mannose sugar chains on the surfaces of other cells.

https://application.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/3527332529_c02.pdf