I have the 3rd edition and he only really makes it clear in the chapter on lager. It could be much much clearer and I understand the confusion.
Yeah been one of my arguments for years/ that and the fact he talks about EVERY worst case scenario/bugaboo in brewing and has freaked out countlesss noobs, to which WE have to clean up his messes.
Anyway one thing to realize is that with lagers there is little margin for error, every flaw is noticeable. That's why as much as a lot of new brewers/craft brew drinkers zealously bash BMC they have to realize that those are the most difficult styles to make. You have to nail every aspect of the process, proper amount of yeast, temp control through the whole process, stuff like that.
If there were a risk of autolysis from long term contact with yeast (and I'm minimizing it here as well) it would be in a lager. Remember the term Lager means "to store" and many beers are lagered for months on end, maybe less so today with Bud and bud light, and that has more to do with economics, but many lagered styles may spend six month in the cold of a lager cellar, so a beer style where flaws are noticeable, that is typically sitting for a long time, would be where it could be picked up. So traditionally beers are taken off the yeast at the time to lager.
But that's not saying you take it off the yeast asap and lager it, you still need to make sure fermentation is finished, and ideally here, more than anywhere, you'd want the cleanup benefits that a few weeks on the yeast would bring, then rack and lager.
I still wait a month on my lagers, before I rack to a secondary for the lager period. Though a few folks on here do lager in a primary.
But anyway, a lot of info has come out in the time since he wrote that little passage, and like I said, he's backed off a little on the autolysis. He realized he was just passing on the same yeast fear that has been a carry over from homebrewing prohibition (from 1920 to 78) when there weren't a lot of quality ingredients, including yeasts, readily available, so yeast very well could have crapped out on us and made nasty beer.
But that isn't the case anymore. Yeast is fresher, better made and stored, we understand more about pitching rates and temp control, so it's not stressed out like it used to be, so therefore it is healthier, and less apt to autolyse. And we've come to realize just what fastiduous housekeepers the yeast are, that given time they will clean up their own messes, and our beer is better for it.
Bottom line though, is to make up your own mind, try it both ways and see. Most of us did it by accident, life got in the way of racking to secondary, and our beers sat longer, and we found they were better tasting and clearer, and crisper then when we used to hurry the process.
