Shortest time to ferment before kegging?

[stanley1271]

Do yourself a favor and wait 2 weeks. As already mentioned by me and others, I normally cant taste the difference fom 2 weeks to 4 weeks. ( it has happened though...stouts and other heavy beers) But I have always been able to taste "greens" in 1 week old beer. I personally am a believer that after primary fermentation is done, the yeast starts eating byproducts of them themselfs in the following week and that is why the extra week makes such a difference. Anymore I mostly just keg between 2-3 weeks and almost never regret it. cheers.

Well as of this Saturday it will be 2 weeks in the fermenter. My first gravity reading was done on Sunday, which was just over a week in the fermenter. Then again on Monday I did a second gravity reading. Both have been logged in my notebook and both came out to 1.010. On the second reading I tasted the beer and it tasted pretty good. So today I plan to take a third reading and a second tasting. This seems to be the only thing I am getting from everyone. Gravity and Taste. And I really like the tasting part.

-Stanley

 

[chevelle383]

So from what I am getting from you guys/gals here is that there is no scientific evidence that supports the long stay in the fermenter. It is proven by many that their beer comes out great when they leave it in the fermenter for 4 weeks or more, but with the fermentation process actually being over in about a week, it should be ok to try a cold crash or even just kegging at that point.

Oh ok, From this I thought you were thinking of kegging after just a week. JUST DONT. brew more and keep beer on hand and that make it easy to not rush beer. I know, am NOT a patient person.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

While looking for something else, I came across this statement from 'Cargill Malt' on the Probrewer forum in this thread:

Also do not allow your beer to be in contact with the yeast any longer than it has to once fermentation is complete. Yeast will autolyze and release protease enzymes over time which will break down head forming proteins. Just make sure fermentation is complete and diacetyl is reduced before getting the beer off the yeast. Overcompensating in this area would do more harm than good.

 

[chevelle383]

Autolysis on the homebrewer sacle has more or less been debunked by most of the most informed individuals I know of. Certainly so when you are talking on a scale of 2-4 weeks.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I knew someone would post that but that was addressed earlier itt by pjj2ba:

At a purely scientific level, yeast will begin to autolyze as the culture enters the stationary phase. When culturing microbes, there is a lag phase, an exponential growth phase followed by a stationary phase. The brewing equivalent of stationary phase is at the end of active fermentation, typically when the krausen falls (which can be as short as 3 or 4 days for a low OG beer with a fast yeast). At this point, autolysis is taking place - scientific fact.

In my opinion, if there are enough yeast in suspension to carbonate a beer, then that is enough yeast to clean up any undesireable byproducts. If fermentation is complete, then bottle/keg it and let it age further there as needed/desired. I see no need to leave it on the cake for a longer period. If someone wants to leave it on the cake longer that is fine too. It's your beer.

Like the wine example, it is a balance. I think to get STRONG flavors from autolysis, the beer has to be poorly handled, and mostly likely the nasty flavors come from other microbes dining on the lysed yeast (all our beers have a few non-yeast microbes in them). I do feel that in a properly handled beer, leaving the beer sur lie will impart some flavor to the beer. Depending on the beer style, it might be totally covered up by other flavors. It will be more obvious in lighter/simpler styles. Add to that personal preference. Some folks are more sensitive to it, some don't care, some like it.

Just because one can't taste it doesn't mean that it's not happening...it is. And it may be to a degree that flavor is not noticeably affected but head retention is.

 

[chevelle383]

pjj is easily more educated that me on the subject, but I have read opposing statements from seemigly as or more knowlegeable people. I dont pretend to really know the definitive answer, but I think its crap for 2-3 weeks on the cake though. Too each his own. For me it DEFINATELY NOT worth the risk/work or transfering to a secondary. There are probably a half a million people that will agree with me and jsut as many that dont you know?

 

[remilard]

but I have read opposing statements from seemigly as or more knowlegeable people.

Can you direct us to these statements/credentials?

 

[chevelle383]

Well for one John Plamer discusses it in his book "How to brew" PG 90

I thought about quoting him here, but its not worth my time. he pretty much says exactly what I said in th eprevious statement. That no one can taste the difference inside a month, and its probably not worth the trade off of exposing your beer for a second time. He also mentions it is a highly debated subject in the home brewers circle.

There is no right or wrong, autolysis is very real and of course it happens. I just dont want this guy to believe he HAS to get it off the yeast cake or his beer will suffer.

I hope your question was sincere , and not just trying to call me out. Cheers

 

[Yooper]

I knew someone would post that but that was addressed earlier itt by pjj2ba:



Just because one can't taste it doesn't mean that it's not happening...it is. And it may be to a degree that flavor is not noticeably affected but head retention is.

That was my point, in a roundabout way! Autolysis is happening. But if it's in a small amount, it's probaby under the taste threshold. Anything alive is also dying- that's the way of the world. But at what point does it become discernable? It used to be the old dogma of "rack the beer as soon as fermentation slows to one bubble per minute to get the beer off of the yeast cake!" In the past, yeast strains weren't as good as they are now, and not as healthy. I think better quality yeast, temperature control, etc, have helped us all to not experience taste effects of autolysis. However to say it's not happening is incorrect. I've never put my beer under a microscope, but I already know that some yeast cells are autolyzing. That's just the way it is.

Also, some beers benefit from aging. Beers with complex malt flavors, high levels of tannins, etc, need some time to meld flavors just as complex wines do. But I see no reason to leave a beer in the fermenter for four weeks unless a. it's a big beer that needs that much time, or b. I just haven't had a chance to get to it!

I made a beer last Saturday, on the 12th. I dryhopped it this past Saturday. I checked it last night- it's clear (I used S04), FG is 1.010, and it tastes great. It's getting kegged today. That's a total of 11 nights in the fermenter. I'd normally leave it a few more days, but I have time to do it today. It's an IPA. It tastes great, the beer is clear, and the hop nose is fresh. Why would I wait? What would I gain as an advantage? Since I can't think of any advantage to waiting, it would be purposeless to just leave it for four weeks because someone on a forum told me to!

 

[Yooper]

I was wondering what the shortest length of time a recipe (see below) would have to sit in a fermenter. From what I have read the main fermentation takes place in about 3-5 days +/- some days for the fermentation process to start. So the rest of the time in the fermenter, such as leaving it there for a month, is to let all the sediment to fall to the bottom and make the yeast cake, correct?

Part of this is due to my lack of patience, but it is also due to not having the room right now. I am going through the house and re-organizing things to make room for the new toys (keezer, fermentation box, etc.), but in making room I am having to put things in the back room where my fermenter is currently at. Since my wife and son have no clue about the fermentation process they think it's ok to just throw things in the back and since there was space where the plastic bucket was thing got thrown around and on it. Thankfully nothing broke or spilled, but until I can build my fermentation chamber I need to make this batch work as fast as possible.

This Saturday will make 2 weeks in the fermenter. Would it be ok to rack it into a keg and do a set-and-forget method of carbing?


::Recipe::
3.30 lbs Golden Light Liquid Malt Extract
3.00 lbs Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
4 oz 60°L Crystal Malt
1 oz. Nugget Hops (45 Mins)
1/2 oz. Perle Hops (15 Mins)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (15 Mins)
1/2 oz. Cascade Hops (dry hop)
1 tsp. Irish Moss
Wyeast 1056 American Ale or 1098 British Ale

As I said in my post above, I'm kegging an IPA today that is 11 nights old. If the beer is clear (and using 1056 it might not be), and at FG, and without any tastes of diacetyl or acetaldehyde, then it's ready.

 

[pjj2ba]

In case the regulars haven't noticed, I have a problem with the use of the term autolysis. Unfortunately I blame Palmer for this. Much of what he says is accurate, but he ascribes, incorrectly, a horrible stench to autolysis, with no actual evidence that this is indeed what happened. I think his book is great, but he really missed the mark on this one.

From How to Brew:
She used boiled rice as the glue to hold the shredded paper together. After the rice had been boiled until it became a paste, the paper making was called off that weekend and the pot of rice paste was set aside on the counter top. A wild yeast must have got a hold of it during the next couple days ( I remember it bubbling) and the pot was ignored in the days that followed. A busy week went by along with another busy weekend and the unintentional Sake experiment still sat there forgotten. The following weekend, my wife was once again ready to try making paper. I picked up the pot and lifted the lid to see what had happened to it. My knees buckled.

for the whole section

The section I bolded is a very BIG assumption to make. Lots of very common microbes will very happily grow and ferment such a nice tasty rice pudding, and lots of them will bubble away just like yeast. I work with a number of different microbes (common ones) and can tell you, that some of them smell downright awful while they are actively growing (and worse when you autoclave them for disposal). Usually the worst smelling microbes are the ones that can handle a lack of oxygen (as in un-aerated rice glue)

Think about it, he had this stuff in a pot in his kitchen. It was boiled, then cooled and sat covered in his kitchen for 2-3 weeks top. Is this really any different than what we do with our beers? It may have been a bit on the warm side, but plenty of folks ferment a bit warm with no problems. So why did he get "autolysis" in such a short time yet most people never experience it? Because what he smelled was not the primary result of yeast autolysis. Granted it could be from other microbes that are feasting on any dead yeast that might have been in there. Ever forgot to clean out your mash tun for a week? Left something on your stove? Would you assume that nasty smell is from yeast autolysis?

In the lab, we work with yeast extract as component of the media we use for growing microbes. This is basically what spills out of a yeast as it is lysed, in this case artificially lysed, not autolysed (could be some minor differences). It pretty much smells yeasty/bready. The media made with it smells just fine. Now if someone forgets to autoclave it, and forgets about it, some of the bugs that grow smell downright nasty (we make the students clean it up)

 

[remilard]

Well for one John Plamer discusses it in his book "How to brew" PG 90

I thought about quoting him here, but its not worth my time. he pretty much says exactly what I said in th eprevious statement. That no one can taste the difference inside a month, and its probably not worth the trade off of exposing your beer for a second time. He also mentions it is a highly debated subject in the home brewers circle.

There is no right or wrong, autolysis is very real and of course it happens. I just dont want this guy to believe he HAS to get it off the yeast cake or his beer will suffer.

I hope your question was sincere , and not just trying to call me out. Cheers

I'm late to the party but Palmer's discussion of autolysis has some problems as noted above. I don't know pjj2ba but he seems to have more of a microbiology background than Palmer.

Anyone who has had sparkling white wine aged sur lies or marmite knows that Palmer's discussion is inaccurate as those don't taste fecal or rubbery.

I get the whole "we have to dumb everything down for the n00bs" thing but this thread wasn't started by a n00b and isn't in the n00b forum. There is a time and a place for a full and detailed discussion of what actually happens in beer. I'll allow you to shoot me down for getting into details and freaking out beginners in the beginners forum but please allow non dumbed down discussions in the subject specific forums.

 

[pjj2ba]

In the interest of full disclosure, I AM NOT a microbiologist by training. I am a Plant Scientist, specifically looking at plant/microbe interactions, mostly on the plant side. Anyone these days who does any kind of molecular biology is going to spend a lot of time using bacteria and yeast while studying their subject of choice, be it plant, animal or other. I actually end up spending more time "playing" with microbes, than I do plants - usually a bacteria that has been engineered to contain a plant gene so it can be more easily studied. So while microbiology is not something I've studied in depth, there is quite a bit of info. one picks up over the years working with them.