Living brew vs clear brew

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blitzgp

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I am about to take up home brewing, but for some reason the bottling and "living beer" concept doesnt sit well with me.

I am just a little confused on where you draw the line for a living beer with live yeast in the bottle. Is there a way to minimize this, but still have enough to carbonate the bottle? Im not sure what the effect of secondary fermentation would have on this. Does secondary fermentation just provide an extra period of time for the suspended yeast to settle out and get a clearer beer? And filtering, is the purpose of filtering actually to remove the majority of yeast suspended in the beer?

The bottom line that I am trying to figure out, is bottling a beer that I do not have to leave the last 1/4" in the bottle, even if it adds a few pain in the butt steps.

On a side note, this forum is amazing, and I cant wait to take up my favorite hobby.
 
Get over your fear, if you haven't had bottle conditioned microbrews, then you are missing out on the world's greatest beers.

Even with month long primaries, or using a secondary, you will have some sediment in the bottles It's in all bottle conditioned beers, homebrew and otherwise.

That is the yeast sediment from carbonating your bottles. It is nearly impossible to avoid, and so what? It is some of the most healthy stuff on the planet. The belgians worship it.

It's just that for the last 150 years or so Americans have been conditioned by the BMC brewers to pretty much know only about fliltered crystal clear light lagers. With little or no flavor.

Until the 80's with the rise of craft breweries and great import availability of beers from around the world, you didn't see many commercial beers with sediment in it.

And if you've only been exposed to BMC's then you're not going to know or understand about bottle conditioned or living beers. Especially also if you've consumed said beers in the bottle.

We get folks like that on here all the time, who think there is something wrong because their beer has sediment in it, or want to filter it out. It's really a culture thing, you don't so much of that in the rest of the beer world. Like the hefeweizen...that is swimming in yeasty beasties...

Read this for more info On bottle yeast. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/anyone-using-filter-bottling-123758/#post1379528


And then watch this video;

Once you learn to pour to the shoulder, it really doesn't matter.



And learn to love it....You are missing out by freaking out about it. My beers pour crystal clear, AND have a lttle yeast in the bottles.....I win contests, and the judges inevitibally comment on it's clarity.
 
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I've never hear the term, "living beer" before. I would guess you are referring to unpasteurized, non-filtered beer. Not sure what you mean by, "draw the line" either. Why do you need to draw the line? You can minimize yeast sediment in the bottle several ways. The obvious one is to allow enough time for the beer to clean in the primary or secondary fermenter, then keg the beer and force carbonate it. You can then bottle it using any of several options such as a counter-pressure bottle filler, a "beer gun" or right out of the tap as I have done more than a few times. You can filter the beer, but then you must force carbonate as there won't be any yeast left in the beer at all. You need yeast to do the bottle conditioning method and this will always result in some yeast sediment. I never get more than just a light layer in the bottom of the bottle and it stays put pretty well most of the time. Very little beer is "wasted". I frequently drink the dregs too. It's good for you from what I understand. I think it contains some good vitamins and such. You really should try bottling some beer with priming sugar the traditional way before you dismiss it entirely. Go to kegging if bottling still bothers you after you give it a try.
 
I was just concerned about the asthetic value of my beers. A cloudy beer with a puddle of sludge on the bottom would in no way prevent me from drinking a beer ;p

But it sounds like letting it age in a secondary fermentor would accomplish what I was worried about. I wasmainly concerned about if I let it all settle out, not having enough yeast left over to properly carbonate it. But if im not mistaken, enough yeast to carbonate will live for many months and only a bottling primer needs to be added to reactivate the yeast reguardless of how clear it is (I hope that makes sense).
 
Yeah you would have to let the beer set WAY long in order for all the yeast to completely drop out (unless you cold crash it)
 
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