How big are yeast?

[hotbeer]

Did I just mess up? I just bottled a NEIPA and at the last moment I decided to use one of those coffee filter baskets that take the place of a paper filter for coffee brewing. There were a few hops, flocculated yeast and other things still suspended at various levels even though the beer was pretty clean looking for a NEIPA. So straining it as it went into my priming pot seemed the thing to do.

Now I'm wondering if the basket filter might be too fine and I strained out the yeast that were to be my means of carbonation. There really wasn't much in the filter basket for me to have been worried about using it.

Any thoughts? I guess it's really time will tell. I'll pop the top on one in a week and see what's going on or not going on.

 

[VikeMan]

Most yeast cells are smaller than most coffee filter pores.

I'd be more concerned about oxygenating the beer on its way through a filter. And sanitation.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I suspect you will still have plenty of yeast.

Bottling NEIPA beers without significant oxidation impact can be a challenge. I am not quite sure of your process, but I would be worried about the level of of oxidation introduced filtering a beer with a coffee filter.

 

[hotbeer]

Glad it's not an obvious wrong thing to do. I didn't really think that a coffee filter basket or even a paper coffee filter would keep free yeast cells from passing through. Just one of those sudden doubts after the fact.

I don't think there was any more aeration than normal using the filter. It was a flat bottom basket and I set it in the priming pot so the level of the beer in it was about the same as the pot filled. I did have to raise it a little by the end of draining the fermenter, but never was the beer dripping from the filter.

Essentially it was just a fence and the liquid equal level on both sides. Pretty similar to this.

Oh.. I do 1 gallon brews, so it's not like I had to have a big and deep priming bucket. And the basket filter was cleaned and sanitized.