KyleWolf
Well-Known Member
So...background of this little story can be read here. For the TL;DR crowd, made a stout using the second runnings from a big stout we brewed. Decided we wanted to add cinnamon toast crunch to the beer. made a mini-mash with the cereal and a # of 2 row, waited, mashed-out, boiled, cooled, added to the beer.
Yeast- S04. Fermentation was going pretty strong. Then it shut down quickly, I waited until day 14 post-brew (per usual schedule) Beer went from 1.064 to 1.020, pretty good numbers for a stout. Opened up my SS brewtech (not the first time used) and behold...something I have never seen before...
The brownish stuff is just shredded cereal that made it through my impromptu mash. But what I didn't expect to see is this THICK oil slick. I mean like, "someone poured 1/4cu olive oil in my beer" style. You can see the density differences in the pictures. You can also see where the oil touches my fermenter because the shredded cereal doesn't stick to it. (see first pic)
So, as odd as that is, I go ahead and transfer, you know, just to see what was going to happen. I transfer out, and the yeast at the bottom...is...gelatinous? like, a jellyfish. I have never seen yeast behave this way before. But, onward and upward. Kegged, chilled, carb'd...Tasted....*shudders*. Complete beef broth and soy. The taste turned my stomach a bit, especially because I could still get the pleasant cinnamon toast crunch flavor in the background. So, obvious signs of autolysis. I will admit I have never had a problem with autolysis before so maybe this is the expected look, but that oil slick on top just blows my mind. It's difficult to imagine it is something in the cereal because people use cinnamon toast crunch a lot in mashes, but it had to be when I added it (~48hrs after pitching). The mini-boil I did I know wasn't too hot because I used my thermometer to ensure it was under 80F before adding.
So any thoughts? Has anyone seen something like this before? I don't know what caused the autolysis, but the results I think are that the yeast cell death and alcohol somehow resulted in separation of the yeast's lipid cell wall and protein content to form the lipid rafts on top and the jelly-like booger on the bottom. If not that, then I don't have an explanation. It was a sad day. That beer is being dumped.
Yeast- S04. Fermentation was going pretty strong. Then it shut down quickly, I waited until day 14 post-brew (per usual schedule) Beer went from 1.064 to 1.020, pretty good numbers for a stout. Opened up my SS brewtech (not the first time used) and behold...something I have never seen before...
The brownish stuff is just shredded cereal that made it through my impromptu mash. But what I didn't expect to see is this THICK oil slick. I mean like, "someone poured 1/4cu olive oil in my beer" style. You can see the density differences in the pictures. You can also see where the oil touches my fermenter because the shredded cereal doesn't stick to it. (see first pic)
So, as odd as that is, I go ahead and transfer, you know, just to see what was going to happen. I transfer out, and the yeast at the bottom...is...gelatinous? like, a jellyfish. I have never seen yeast behave this way before. But, onward and upward. Kegged, chilled, carb'd...Tasted....*shudders*. Complete beef broth and soy. The taste turned my stomach a bit, especially because I could still get the pleasant cinnamon toast crunch flavor in the background. So, obvious signs of autolysis. I will admit I have never had a problem with autolysis before so maybe this is the expected look, but that oil slick on top just blows my mind. It's difficult to imagine it is something in the cereal because people use cinnamon toast crunch a lot in mashes, but it had to be when I added it (~48hrs after pitching). The mini-boil I did I know wasn't too hot because I used my thermometer to ensure it was under 80F before adding.
So any thoughts? Has anyone seen something like this before? I don't know what caused the autolysis, but the results I think are that the yeast cell death and alcohol somehow resulted in separation of the yeast's lipid cell wall and protein content to form the lipid rafts on top and the jelly-like booger on the bottom. If not that, then I don't have an explanation. It was a sad day. That beer is being dumped.
